Before The Love
by 1980s-popito
Summary: "I had to accept that everything and everyone around me was changing, whether whatever changed was a good thing or bad thing." -Raina 'Rain' Johnson, "BEFORE THE LOVE"... Rain's just trying to get by, and she's getting a little help from her friends. Being a Greaser isn't easy, but having friends makes it easier... doesn't it? (prequel of "To Love A Greaser") (1 of 3)
1. Chapter 1

This was the first time. The first time I'd ever been jumped. I know I shouldn't have been walking alone. Sure, I knew it was dangerous to do that but I didn't know where the gang was and I had to get home. I was just happy that they hadn't done worse like they would to most girls like me, or almost any girl, really.

I saw a figure about twenty feet away from me. He wore a jean jacket with the collar popped up and old converse sneakers. I recognized the figure as Johnny. I tried to call him but when I did my side began to hurt, probably way more than it should have. I started to breath heavy and clutched my side. I attempted to call him one more time and, thankfully, got his attention and he came running toward me. He leaned down when he saw me, "Rain, what happened?" His voice was quiet and his eyes showed worry.

"Who do you think?" I breathed out.

He nodded and helped me lean up against a tree. "Stay here, I'm gonna go get Darry, he'll know what to do," he said and ran off. He came back a few minutes later with Darry, Sodapop and Ponyboy running behind him. "They got you , huh?" Soda frowned. I nodded.

"Where does it hurt you most?" Darry sighed.

"My right side," I choked out.

He struggled to help me on my feet without touching my side and helped me into the passenger's seat of his car. Soda, Pony and Johnny all got into the back. I clutch my side again and leaned my head against the window. "You're gonna be ok, Rain," Sodapop said and put his hand on my left shoulder from the back, "Do you remember what they looked like?" I just shook my head and I saw him nod.

Darry pulled into the parking lot of the hospital, "Soda, help me with Rain. Pony and Johnny, you go sign her in to see a doctor." The two nodded and ran inside. I glanced out the windshield and saw Two-Bit's car and him, Steve and Dallas came out toward us. "What happened?" Two-Bit asked and Darry explained what he knew so far. Two-Bit nodded and looked at me, "How bad does it hurt?" I just shook my head and bit my lip.

…_twenty minutes later…_

"How long does it take for x-rays to develop?" I whispered to Darry. He shrugged and shook his head not knowing the answer to my question. A woman came into the room in a white doctor's coat after what felt like forever of waiting. "Hi, Raina, how are you feeling?" she asked with a small smile. I glared at her a bit. She nodded, "I thought as much… ok, so I've looked at your x-rays and, this probably wasn't what you wanna hear but, you have a broken ribcage and the only way to fix them is by surgery." I cringed at her words.

"When would you do it and how long would it take?" Darry asked, standing up from his seat.

"Well I'm working on scheduling it for tomorrow morning, for a few reasons. One: just so nothing else gets broken or that the break gets worse. Two: it'll help get rid of Raina's pain sooner. And three: the sooner we get it done and over with, the better for everyone… and time wise, probably about four hours. I know it seems like a difficult operation, but it's actually not as bad as it sounds."

"How long will she have to stay here after it's done?" Soda asked.

"Probably a week then we would release her to her parents."

My eyes widened. Two-Bit stood up from his seat, "Her parents are outta town for their jobs and can't come back for a while. At least not till their trip is completely done or whatever." I looked at him and mouthed, "Thank you." He nodded and looked back at the doctor.

She nodded, "I see… is there anyone she can stay with or is staying with?"

"She can stay with us," Darry said, "She's stayed with us before and we have an extra room."

"Alright," she nodded and looked back at me, "Raina, I'll see you in the morning." And with that she walked out. I put one hand over my face in worry while the other clutched my side.

"So, I guess you're stuck in this hell hole overnight," Dallas said.

"Not helpful," I mumbled through my hand.

**AHHHHH FIRST CHAPTER! I'm kinda excited for this story. Ok, for those of you reading this, I have a story "To Love A Greaser" so if you found this before that, it doesn't matter cause this can be either a prequel (beforehand) or a sequel (after) to it… the concept for this story was requested by shanny02 on wattpad… she contacted me through instagram after I posted a court scene in "To Love A Greaser" for that chapter and she said she was curious about certain things that I had said happened to the character addressed as "Rain" (Raina Johnson) so I decided to make this story. So this story is dedicated to you- both on wattpad and fanfiction. net! **

**Anyway! So this chapter was kinda short, but that's cause it's basically an intro so yeah- but if you're reading this before "To Love A Greaser", make sure you check that one out too since they go hand in hand!**

**Oops, billy joel is on the radio so you know what that means (cause I LOVE his music): Bye! =^-^=**


	2. Chapter 2

…_one week later…_

"…who's awake!" I heard someone call from the hall. I tried to sit up wherever I was until pain shot through my right side and stopped me. I grunted a bit and leaned my head back against the board behind me, my hand clutching my side. "_This is the Curtis' house," _I thought. "Doin' ok, Rain?" Steve asked and walked into the room.

"Why does my side hurt?" I mumbled and closed my eyes.

"You had surgery, remember?" Soda asked following his best friend.

I shook my head, "Last thing I remember was being at the hospital and saying I had to have surgery. That's it."

He chuckled. "That was a week ago."

My eyes widened. "I've been out for a week?!"

Dallas walked in and leaned in the doorway of the room, "You've been in an' out for a week. Last night when you were able to leave that hell hole you were kinda awake, by the time we got ya here you were out."

I sighed loudly. "Lovely…"

"Like I said, at least you're outta there."

"If I was asleep, how'd I get here?"

"Steve and me dragged you from the car," Soda answered like he was gonna start laughing at himself.

Darry came in and told the three to leave, then sat on the edge of the bed I was in, "So how ya feeling?"

I shrugged. "My side hurts and my head hurts."

He nodded. "Alright… just rest today, got it?"

I nodded and he started to leave the room. "Hey Darry?" I stopped him and he turned around. "Thank you," I said quietly. He nodded and I saw him smile a bit then he walked out.

Even though I was grateful for him letting me stay there, I kinda felt bad. Mr and Mrs Curtis had died only a month ago in that car crash and things were not easy for them, and it was pretty hard on the rest of us too. And now this whole incident wouldn't help with anything. We all were close with their parents, considering none of us really had stable homes, maybe Two-Bit but not completely cause his dad walked out on them when we were all just kids. Steve's dad was just, terrible. Dallas', I don't think he even cared anymore at this stage of the game. Johnny, we both came from basically the same kind of home, just different people. Mr and Mrs Curtis were the only parents out of any of ours that genuinely cared about their kids and all of us too. I remember when I first met them… the whole gang too, actually. It was the same day…

"_I'm sorry," I mumbled and looked away from the boy I bumped into._

"_It's alright, no injuries," the boy smiled and held out his hand, making me look up at him with a shocked expression, "My name's Sodapop. Sodapop Curtis."_

_I hesitantly shook his hand and chuckled quietly. "Sodapop?... isn't that a drink?" My voice was still quiet; I was always sheltered whenever I came in contact with someone I never met before._

_He smiled proudly. "Yeah. My dad chose it cause he liked how it sounded different than most kids around. My little brother is even named Ponyboy!"_

_I chuckled again but gave another confused look. "Sodapop and Ponyboy…"_

_He nodded. "Yup! I have a big brother too, but my mom named him after my dad, so his name is just Darrel, but everyone calls him Darry so nobody gets confused… what's your name?"_

"_Raina…"_

"_That name sounds cool! Sounds different like mine too!"_

_I chuckled again but stopped when a boy walked up behind the boy who said his name was Sodapop. "Hey Soda, ya disappeared aft-" he stopped when he saw me, "Who's the girl?"_

_Before I could answer, Sodapop did, "This is Raina!" He looked at me, "Raina, this is my best buddy, Steve!" The boy named Steve nodded at me and I said a quiet "hello". "Hey Raina, you wanna come over my house after school? You can meet the rest of our friends, I think you'll like them." His smile from before was still in place and I couldn't help but give a small smile back._

_I shrugged, "Sure, if your parents don't get mad about it." He nodded, smiled bigger and waved as him and the boy named Steve walked off._

…end of school day…

_I walked to the entrance of the school and saw Steve and Sodapop talking on the sidewalk. Sodapop turned and smiled when he saw me. "Raina!" he called waving both his arms frantically in the air to make sure I could see him, but getting a few looks from older kids surrounding the area. I smiled and walked over to the two boys I had recently met. "My parents pick up my big brother first cause he's in a different school cause he's ten," he said in a proud way._

_A few minutes later, a big red car drove up in front of us on the sidewalk. A woman with blonde hair and light eyes came out from the driver's side. She was obviously Sodapop's mom, the two looked exactly alike. The woman hugged him, said hi to Steve then helped them into the car. "Mom, that's my new friend Raina, can she come over?" Sodapop asked the woman hopefully. She chuckled at her son's enthusiasm and nodded, "Of course." She then helped me climb into the car._

"_Your dad is already home with Ponyboy," she told him as she drove away from the school, "So Raina, you're friends with Sodapop?"_

_I looked at him and he nodded, signaling me what to answer, "Um… yes."_

"_I never knew Soda stopped thinking girls had cuties," she teased and Sodapop's ears turned red and his cheeks were pink. "I'm Mrs Curtis." She turned for a quick moment and smiled at me._

_She stopped the car in front of a house on the corner of the block and we all got out. A taller boy got out of the passenger's seat. "That's Soda's big brother, Darry," Steve whispered to me, "He can be a real stick in the mud sometimes, but you'll get used to him."_

_The boy who Steve said was Darry was shockingly tall for a ten year old. He kinda looked like their mother, but not too much. I guessed he looked more like their father. He seemed like a very stiff and serious person. "Darry, that's Sodapop's new friend, Raina," Mrs Curtis informed her other son. He looked at me and smiled a bit, "Hi there, Raina." I smiled back but stopped and jumped a bit when Sodapop grabbed my arm and pulled me inside, running and laughing._

_There was a man sitting on the couch in the front room with a little boy with brown hair, reading him a story book. The boy didn't look too much younger than I was." He smiled at Mrs Curtis. "_That must be their dad,"_ I thought. Darry walked over to the two, "Hi Dad! Hi Ponyboy!"_

_Sodapop ran over to his father and motioned me to follow him, "Dad! This is my new friend Raina!"_

_The man smiled at me, "Hello Raina, I'm Mr Curtis, Sodapop's father… and this is Ponyboy," he smiled at the little boy sitting on his lap with brown hair, who was now smiling._

_Steve, Sodapop and Darry all went outside and insist I go outside with them. Two boys came walking up to the house a little while after. One was almost as tall as Darry and had dirty blonde hair. The other boy had tan skin and dark hair and looked familiar. Steve pointed to the blonde one," That there is Keith, but we all call him Two-Bit."_

_I gave a confused look, "Why do you all call him that?"_

"_You'll see once ya get to know him," he then pointed to the one with dark hair, "And that's Johnny, or we call him Johnnycake sometimes cause his last name is Cade and it sounds almost the same."_

_The boy named Johnny walked up to me, "You look really familiar… do you go to the school in the middle of town?" I nodded. "What classroom are you in?"_

"_234…"_

_He smiled a bit, "You're in my classroom!"_

_I remembered now. He sat in the back of the classroom. He was the quiet boy that a lot of people talked about cause he was so quiet. A lot of kids thought he was weird cause of it, but I never thought he was weird… even though I never met him._

_The blonde boy walked up to me smiling, "What's your name?"_

"_Raina…"_

_He thought for a moment and gave a look. "Can we call you Rain instead, it sounds more tuff."_

_I chuckled a bit and shrugged. Sodapop came back over by me, "There's another boy we know but he doesn't live here. He's from New York! That's far! He comes here every other month with his family. His name is Dallas, like the one is Texas. He's kinda mean but that's just till you get to know him." He still had the silly smile on his face, but I smiled again too, I couldn't help it._

**Aw little greasers :3 I don't know what to put in the author's note :/ I always do that whenever I start a brand new story… maybe cause right now I'm listening to Stevie Wonder and I'm distracted (I LOVE STEVIE WONDER!) ? I don't know… but listen to him and you'll be happy :3 bye! =^-^=**


	3. Chapter 3

My side was still hurting when I woke up. I struggled to get up, but I somehow managed to get out of the bed. I glanced at the clock… 10:37am… "_What day is it today?_" I thought. I shrugged and went to living room expecting to see everyone there but instead, I just saw Dallas sitting on the couch with a beer in his hand. "A little early for that, don't ya think?" I asked and leaned my left side against the wall.

He jumped a bit when he saw me and sat up, "Whoa, what're you doin' up?"

I sat down at the table. "You know I can never just lie around and do nothing, Dal… where is everybody?"

"Darry, Steve and Sodapop are at work… Two-Bit, Ponyboy and Johnny are at school… and I'm here." He smirked a bit.

I rolled my eyes and scoffed a bit. "Let me guess… Darry left you in charge if e since you don't go to school or work and hang around all day like a lazy ass bum?"

"That is correct. Now… while we are in the topic of so named, Darrel Curtis," he got up and sat across from me at the table, "Why don't you tell me what happened with them Socs and how they got ya?"

"What does that have to do with Darry?"

"Well, Darry said if you got up I should try to shake it outta ya… cause if I don't, he said he's gonna ask you 'bout it when he gets home… so basically, it's me or Darry. Take your pick," he shrugged.

"Fine, I choose you."

"Then spill." He leaned back in his chair.

I sighed and rested my elbow on the table and my head pressed against my hand. "I was walking around cause my parents were being as lovely as they always are and I didn't feel like dealin' with 'em. So I was on my way here, and you can probably tell what happened from there."

"So you were walkin' alone?" I nodded hesitantly at his question. He gave me a stern look, "Rain, you know what we told you..." He wasn't yelling yet, but I knew that tone in his voice, that he was ready to yell and that he was holding it back a bit.

"I know, Dallas! But I thought maybe I'd be ok on our side." I was close to yelling like he was.

"It's never safe for us, Rain!" he yelled, "Look, you should've known it would happen. I know you don't wanna hear this, but you're lucky they didn't rape you!" He gave a heavy sigh. "None of us need this right now, especially with Mr and Mrs Curtis in that wreck a month ago!"

That hit me in a different way. "You're acting like I control everything that's going on! You think I wanted to get jumped?! You think I wanted to have surgery?! You think I controlled what happened in that wreck?! This may be something new to you, but we all went through that! I already feel like a burden on those three cause of this and I don't need you making me feel worse than I already do!" I yelled, standing up and going outside, sitting down on the steps to the house.

A few minutes later, I heard the front door open and shut, Dallas came and sat next to me. "Rain, I didn't… I didn't mean any of that." I kept my eyes fixed on the ground. "I didn't know you felt that way," he continued.

Dallas would only show this side to very few people, and I was one of those people. I don't know who else he would to, sometimes Johnny and Ponyboy, but never too much. Maybe cause I was the only girl he was really friends with? I don't know. But even then, I could count on one hand how many times he actually showed his apologetic, soft side to me, and it was only when he got me really mad or I was really upset about something.

"I try to be as tough as you and the rest, but I still have feelings, Dal. And those feelings can be hurt just as much as any other person," I said quietly.

He sighed. "I know, I know… everything just caught up to me, I guess."

That was his way of apologizing. Like I said, Dallas had a soft spot for me. Even the rest did, actually. They didn't like getting too rough with me around, which bothered me sometimes. It made me think that they would sometimes think that I was some weak girl instead of like them. I actually was as strong as them, maybe even stronger with some things, believe it or not. But I didn't like when they acted less of how they usually were.

He sighed, "There's just a lot goin' on right now and it caught up to me. I didn't mean to snap at ya like that." I still looked at the ground. He sighed again, "Say somethin', would ya? You're makin' me nervous."

"Somethin', would ya? You're making me nervous," I teased, still looking at the ground and trying to bite back a smile.

I heard him chuckle a bit. "At least now I know you're still talkin' to me."

"I didn't mean to yell at you neither…"

He nodded. "We should head back inside." He stood up and turned to the door. I cleared my throat and he turned back to me. I held out my arms forward so he could help me up. He laughed, "Really?"

I nodded. "Please? My side hurts to get up on my own." He chuckled and helped me up. "Don't laugh at my pain," I said and he laughed again.

Dallas was like an annoying big brother. Couldn't live with him, couldn't live without him. When you were mad or something, he would either make you feel better or he would piss you off- there was no in between. Like I said, he had a soft spot for me… yes, even the big, bad Dallas Winston can be a complete softie. I've seen it, and it's actually pretty weird seeing him like that.

"Never thought I'd see the day," he said when we got back inside.

I leaned against the wall again, "See the day when?"

"When you'd yell back."

He was right. Usually when someone did something to me, I didn't fight or yell back, depending on the situation. I could probably count on only two hands how many times I had fought back with certain things. I mean, when I was fourteen, Dallas hit on me and I beat him up. And believe it or not, he was hurt pretty bad. Mostly, he couldn't walk straight or without jockage for a whole week and a half. If I could do that, I could do anything.

"Ya know, Darry wanted you to rest today."

"But I don't want to." I sounded like a little kid.

He shrugged and plopped himself on the couch, "Then you deal with him. I don't want my head pounded in."

I sighed in defeat and fell down next to him on the couch. "Fine, but I'm staying right here the rest of the day."

He shrugged again. "Whatever the hell floats your boat."

"Can I ever get a real opinion outta you?"

"Just this once… no. I thought you'd be used to that from me… how long have we been friends again?"

I shrugged. "I don't know… nearly ten years?"

"Then you should _really_ be used to my answers to things."

**This chapter is shorter :( whatever… this was kind of just a thing that showed her relationship with Dallas. I'm planning on doing a little chapter like this at least once with the rest :P so yeah, hope you liked it!**


	4. Chapter 4

…_one month later…_

"Ready to go back to school?" Johnny asked me as him, Two-Bit and I walked to up to the school building.

I had been out for nearly a month cause of where I got that surgery on my side. The doctor wouldn't let me go to school cause she didn't want the stitches to get messed up or something, I don't know. But either way, I had some work to catch up with. I really didn't feel like doing it, but I would since I didn't wanna get held back like I did when I was ten or eleven in the fifth grade, all because of some stupid reading assignment… so in answer to Johnny's question, no. Not particularly.

I shrugged, "I don't know. Not really, but I guess I have to be."

"It's still weird not having Soda or Steve around here," Two-Bit said as we walked in.

Soda had dropped out a week before I got hurt, Steve did the same a week after him. I don't know why Steve did, probably cause he wouldn't have Soda with him anymore at the school, I don't know. I know why Soda dropped out, though; he kept saying he was dumb. Pony and I kept trying to tell him otherwise, but he would just blow us off about it or change the subject. Though, when it happened, Steve told me he knew the reason Soda dropped out; it was so he could help out Darry so he could get a job and take some pressure off his big brother.

I don't really agree with their dropping out. Couldn't they have at least finished off the school year? There was only about a month and a half left of the year.

We got inside the school and the bell rang. Two-Bit went off to whatever class he had while Johnny and me headed toward our first class. "Did Pony tell you 'bout school next year?" he asked.

I shook my head, "No, what?"

"His teacher told him that he's too smart for the eighth grade next year and that he might be put into freshman classes here at the high school."

My eyes widened a bit. "He might be able to skip the eighth grade?!" Johnny nodded. "That's so great for him!... I wish we could'a done that."

He chuckled. "But we both were held back in fifth grade."

I shook my head. "No, _I_ got left back. You stayed cause when you found out about that, you stopped doing all your homework so you could get held back too. So that doesn't technically count."

"Well, you think I wanted to go to the sixth grade on my own? And it does count, cause it's on that _'permanent record'_ thing that all the teachers talk about."

"So then was it really worth staying back just so we'd stay in the same classes?"

He nodded, "Yes it was." I scoffed but ended up laughing as we walked into the classroom, earning us a confused look from the teacher, and weird looks from everyone else in the room.

…_after school…_

Johnny and I met up with Ponyboy when school was over. The three of us were always pretty close. Other than the fact that we were the youngest, we just got along easier. Sure, I met Sodapop first, but we had more of a brother/sister relationship than anything else… ya know what? I'm not really sure why I was closer with Ponyboy and Johnny. It just happened, I guess.

Maybe with Ponyboy cause Steve always made comments about him being a "tag-along", so before I would always defend him before he got old enough to defend himself. I probably did that cause I didn't get along too well with Steve either, but we won't get into that right now.

And Johnny, well everyone loved Johnny. I think it was physically impossible not to. But the real reason I think the two of us got along pretty well was for two reasons. One: Before we were friends in the same class when we were all kids, everyone would talk about him and laugh at him cause he was so quiet and shy, and I was the only person who wouldn't. And two: we came from homes so similar, the two of us just understood each other in a way better than the rest, in that sense.

I opened my mouth to say something till someone behind us yelled, "_Boo!_" I jumped and screamed, Johnny and Ponyboy let out- what I call- a "guy-scream", which is how guys scream, but it comes out as basically a yell.

The three of us turned and saw a laughing Two-Bit, who looked like he was about to fall down to the ground cause he was laughing so hard. The three of us all shared annoyed looks then glared at the taller of us all. He finally composed himself but still chuckled, "Hey guys."

"Jerk!" I yelled.

"You nearly scared us to death!" Ponyboy shouted.

"Was there a point in doing that?" Johnny asked, his voice raising, but not loud enough to be considered a _yell_.

Two-Bit gave an innocent look. "Y'all 're acting like I never done this before."

He did have a point. I sighed, "That's true. But that still doesn't make it any better."

"I'll probably be doin' it till we're all old and gray and in some old folk's home."

"We're stuck with you for the rest of our lives?" Ponyboy questioned, earning laughter from me and Johnny and a glare from Two-Bit.

The two of them pretty much argued about that the whole way back to the house. All the way there, Johnny and I followed a foot behind the youngest and second oldest of the gang, trying to hold in our laughter and making comments between ourselves, that made it harder to hold in our laugh's. Thankfully, the two were two engaged in their conversation that they didn't notice out comments.

By the time we got to the house, the two were still going at it, probably cause Two-Bit didn't wanna let it go or something. Not to sound rude, but he had a tendency to do that sort of thing. Yes, he was my friend, but he did have quirks.

But don't we all have quirks?

Johnny and I had enough of them by now and it wasn't as funny anymore. By now, it was downright annoying. "Enough!" I yelled. The two looked away from each other and at me with shocked expressions, and I saw Johnny smirk a little. "You two have been going on about it for twenty minutes, is there really a point?" I asked with an annoyed expression.

"Yeah," Two-Bit nodded, "Point is, you've been spending too much time with Dal these last few weeks."

"Who's been spending too much time with me?" we heard from the door and saw Dallas walk in.

"Speak of the devil…" Two-Bit whispered to me, Johnny and Pony while we all held in our laughter.

Dallas glared at Two-Bit. "Watch yourself, Mathews."

The two exchanged a few more threats, which then led to it taking about ten minutes to rip them apart before they killed each other before Darry, Soda and Steve got back from work. If they killed each other while Darry was around, he'd at least know what to do, better than us three at least.

By the time we got the two separated from each other, they both had something to show for their fight. Two-Bit had a small trickle of blood from the corner of his left eye that had already started to swell. Dallas had a cut on the edge of his lip that had made a small blood mark in the area, and his eyes were still filled with fire. We all knew better than, at this point, to not even _try_ to calm him down. The only thing that could calm him down, was just himself and leaving him alone to let him cool down.

Pony and I went to get the two each a wet rag to clean off their cuts, and Johnny stayed with them cause we all knew, no one would fight if it was just him around. And to our suspicions, we were right, since when we got back, the two boys sat in their same spots as when Pony and I left the room a few minutes earlier. Johnny smirked at me and Pony, earning a slight chuckle from both of us.

Ponyboy went to Dallas while I went to Two-Bit. He took the rag and wiped it over the corner of his eye, "Thanks, Rain."

I nodded and sat across from him. "Don't mention it… but why'd ya feel the need to get into a fight with Dal?"

He shrugged. "I was bored."

I scoffed and chuckled. "You're an idiot sometimes, ya know that?"

He chuckled. "Took you this long to figure that out?"

"I figured it out ten years ago when I first met you."

"Yeah, but you love me." His voice was teasing.

I couldn't help but laugh, "Just clean your eye."

**Aw, early Rain and Two-Bit :3 (if you have already read, "To Love A Greaser", then you get what I mean)**

**That's really all I have to say, I cant think of-**

**WAIT I THOUGHT OF SOMETHING!**

**I saw The Breakfast Club in theaters for the 30 year anniversary :3 oh my gosh, I was saying like every line with the movie and my mom was like "Just sit and enjoy the movie, even though you've seen it like a hundred times" and I was like "This is how I enjoy it"… no, there were these other teenage girls behind me, they were so annoying GOSH! They thought they knew everything about the movie, like no, you don't, so shut up and let the freaks like me who are obsessed with these people enjoy it**

**Wow that was weird**

**Ok, im done! Peace from all the hippies of the world!**


	5. Chapter 5

**Ok, so this chapter is based off the court trial in "To Love A Greaser", it had happened after the introduction event in this story in the first chapter, so that's why this is here… if people get the wrong idea of this that I'm making a joke out of what happens to kids and their parents, don't you dare think that cause I'm not. I'm not some sick, inhumane person that thinks that's funny- I think those parents are stupid and deserve to be treated like how they treated the child. You'll know what I mean when you continue reading this chapter…**

…_a few months later, early August…._

I ran. That's all I could think of doing. I didn't know where I was actually running to, I just running forward, looking down at the ground, waiting to stop wherever my feet stopped.

I tripped over my own feet, but caught myself by landing the palms of my hands onto the ground so my face didn't hit the ground, it already looked bad enough. Pain shot all through my ankle. I decided to suck it up and just keep running to… wherever I was running to.

I landed on someone's front steps. I didn't look to see who's it was, but I prayed that whoever's house it was, they didn't come outside and kick me to the curb or that the person who lived in the house wasn't home. I just wanted to sit down and try to cool down, or at least try to. I sat down on the second step and rested my elbows on my knees. Then I rested my head in my hands, and wiped whatever tears I could feel running down my cheeks or some that were about to roll down my cheek.

"Rain?" someone asked form behind me. I jumped and looked behind me, seeing Darry standing in front of the door to their house with a facial expression of both worry and confusion. He walked over and sat next to me on the steps, "Rain, you alright?"

My gaze was fixed on the ground. I glanced up at him through the corner of my eye, through strands of my hair. "Yeah," I said quietly, so quietly that he probably barely heard me.

"Rain, you're a terrible liar… Rain?... Rain, look at me."

I bit my lip, regretting it a second later, and hesitantly turned to him. His eyes widened a little bit when he saw me, "What happened to you?"

"My parents," I choked out.

His eyes scanned over my entire face. He gently took my arms out in front of him and turned them over slowly, trying to find any more cuts or bruises that were recent. He finished looking over for any more recent marks then stood up, holding his hand out to help me stand up, considering my ankle was still hurting from when I fell.

He led me inside and told me to sit on the couch. I could feel the other six pairs of eyes, all that I knew, staring at my every move with worried expressions. "Rain?" one of them said, but I didn't look to see who, "What happened to you?" I just shook my head, not really wanting to answer at the moment, knowing I would be interrogated about it later on in the dat.

"Rain," Darry called from the bathroom, "Come here." I got up from the couch and walked to the bathroom, trying to cover up whatever limp I had form when I fell, but I had a strong feeling that I was failing miserably. "Sit on the lid, you said your ankle was bothering you and you probably shouldn't be walking on it too much," he said and put some liquid on a small towel, he sighed a bit, "I ain't gonna lie, this'll probably sting, but it'll feel alright in a little while."

He ran the towel over any cut that I had, the first one being a cut by my eye and I bit my lip when I flinched to keep from making any sound at all. "Sorry," he said with every flinch or every time my body tense when he put the towel over cut or bruise. He asked if there was anything on my back and when I said yes, he hesitantly told me to lift the back of my shirt but to be careful not to let anything show- which was completely understandable.

"You probably change into another pair of clothes for a little while, right?" he asked. I nodded. "Alright, I'll go get you a t-shirt and sweats. I'll be right back." He left the room then came back with a red t-shirt that had "_coca-cola"_ written in faded white letters and gray sweatpants. "They're Soda's so they're gonna be a little big, but not too much. He's the only one you're about the same height." I nodded and walked out for me to change, closing the door behind him.

I quickly changed out of my jeans and my own t-shirt and into the t-shirt and sweats. I left the bathroom and to the hallway where Darry was waiting, where he took my clothes out my hand and said he would throw them in the wash. "What'd your parents do this time?" Steve asked when I went back to the living room.

"Whatever they did, looks like you just got outta rumble," Dallas said. I get he was trying to lighten the mood, but it was too soon to make a comment like that.

His comment made me mad. I punched him in the arm, probably harder than I expected to, considering he pulled his arm away and rubbed the area where I hit. "Really?" I asked him with an annoyed tone. He shrugged at my question and I rolled my eyes.

Soda cleared his throat a little. "Anyway," he started, "Why'd your parents… ya know… this time?"

I shrugged. "Your guess is as good as mine. The only answer I could give ya is that I could smell alcohol in my dad's breath."

"It's stupid if you ask me," Johnny mumbled quietly, only loud enough where I could hear since he was sitting at my other side.

"Not to sound rude or give you the wrong idea of what I'm trying to say," Ponyboy started, "But why'd you come here of all places?"

Soda sent him a look of some sort of discipline. I let out a small chuckle at his reaction, "Oh, calm down, Soda… and I didn't plan on coming here. I just ran out the first chance I got and just kept running, then landed outside on the steps of your house."

"_That's_ what that loud thud was outside?" Two-Bit asked.

I shrugged. "I guess so."

"You fall pretty hard, then." I could hear he was trying to make me feel better, and I'd be lying if it didn't help somewhat, but I wasn't going to admit to it out loud, not yet anyway.

I sent an annoyed look his way. "Thank you, Two-Bit."

For about another hour and a half, they all asked me about what happened… well, everyone except Johnny, who stayed his usual quiet self. Which was pretty understandable to me. He knew how it all went. He knew what went on in my house. He knew the life I was forced to live the majority of my life. He didn't _have_ to ask what happened at my house, he already knew.

It always broke my head thinking about that. How much the two of us could relate, in this sense at least. Sure, we were in the grade, same friends, same class, whatever. Anyone could have those similarities. But the fact that we had the same home life, it was kinda sad. Like I said, it broke my heart knowing Johnny, who couldn't even hurt a fly, his life was my life. But at the same time, it didn't feel that way, knowing there was someone who understood exactly what I was going through at home.

During the whole thing with the interrogation they all did, Johnny got up from next to me on the couch and went outside. "Uh guys," I interrupted, "If you don't mind, I'd really like to just get some air for a little bit. I'll just be right outside on the porch." Before anyone could protest me, I got up and started walking outside, trying to ignore my ankle.

I turned on the porch light and sat down next to Johnny on the steps of the house, "Hey, Johnnycake."

"Hey, Rain," he said quietly, not looking up from the ground.

"Just curious… why'd you come out here?"

He shrugged a bit. "I dunno…"

"Ya filthy liar," I teased and chuckled, "Now what's wrong?"

I saw him smile a bit, but his smile quickly disappeared just as quickly as it was there. "I couldn't sit there and listen to what your parents did to you."

"Oh." My voice got quiet and I looked down as well.

"Yeah… and I just… it's bad enough my folks do it to me, but both of us? It just ain't fair, ya know?"

"Johnny, life ain't always fair. Besides, whether it's you or me, it ain't right. There's no difference or comparison whether it's right for them to do it or not to either one of us. What they do, it just ain't right."

"True, but still. I just couldn't listen to it."

I nodded. "I get it, trust me, I get what you're saying… that's how I feel whenever it happens to you. I know you know this already, but life just ain't fair sometimes. We just established that," I chuckled, "But we all got each other to get through it."

I saw him smile again when he nodded. "Yeah, you're right."

I smiled a little. "When am I not?" I teased. "But, otherwise you're alright?"

"I should be askin' you that."

I thought for a moment. "Then you can make up for it by helping me stand up and walk inside, my ankle still hurts." He chuckled a little, stood up then held out his hand to help me stand and went back inside.

**Ok, so you see where my other author's was going before? Good.**

**Ok so I need an opinion. I've asked three people in total about this (one of you is on fanfiction. net and you know who you are, the other two are two of my friends who like to help me with things I'm not sure about for these stories) on fanficiton. Net, there are things called "one-shots", which for those who don't know, are little short stories for fan fic's where it's little stories that the people make up, but they're not chapters long, but people can make a bunch of them as little chapters or parts for a story… I've been thinking with this story, to make a collection of those (for those on wattpad, they're the equivalent to little short stories) based off the second bonus chapter in "To Love A Greaser". In that chapter, I had the future for what happens to the characters (in my story at least) and I was thinking of making little stories like that, and each short story is a chapter over a period of their lives based on that… ok, so this is where you come in- I need to know if there are people who would actually read that if I did that, or if it's too much for those characters and story… so please, please, please, PLEASE message me, comment, ANYTHING telling me what you think? I will love you even more than I do already (since y'all actually read this things of mine) so yeah… that's it**

**Peace from all the hippies of the world! =^-^=**


	6. Chapter 6

Everyone relaxed about the whole thing with my parents. It took about a week for them to relax, but slowly but surely, they did. Well, that's if you don't include the fact that they all said that they forbid me to go back to my own house where they were, for at least a month, and that if I had to go back to get anything from my room that I needed or anything, I should sneak through the window and lock my bedroom door- which I had done in the past so that worked out.

The Curtis had said I could sleep on their couch for a while during that month. While I had tried to protest against it, Soda tackled me to the ground, laughing his head off and said, "It wasn't an option and that I had no choice either way." That was one of those I was happy we were a lot like brother and sister in our relationship, otherwise I probably would've killed him.

The main reason that I tried to say no was cause I knew that they were still dealing with a lot. Darry had started to get more stressed out ever since their parents died and he got a job, and slowly, I could tell the stress was eating him alive. Plus Ponyboy found at that he'd be skipping the eighth grade and going straight into his freshman year in high school, so he was probably nervous about that, considering everyone would then be a year older than him in that class.

"Whether you like it or not, you're stayin' with us for that month. You know Soda would either drag you in here until you finally caved, or he'd throw you over his shoulder and bring you in here himself. You know he's done that before," Ponyboy laughed.

"There's just… there's just a lot going on right now that I kinda feel bad about the whole thing," I shrugged.

"It was Darry's choice to let you stay with us for a while, and you know he won't let you say no either, whether it's crazy around here or not."

"Well, then what do _you_ think about it?"

He thought for a moment. "I'm cool with it."

"That's it? You're just _cool with it_?" I teased.

He laughed. "Well, that's not _it_. And even if it was, I mean it in the best possible way."

I nodded. "Ok, then what else?"

"Well, you're one of my best friends so of course I'm happy about it."

I smiled. "Aw Pony." My voice was still in a way that I was teasing him.

His cheeks got pink a little bit and he chuckled.

We just sat there talking for a while. It seems like we would do that a lot. A lot of the time, he would start talking about something, say something I didn't understand, I would ask either what he was talking about or what he meant, he would explain it to me, then we'd continue on with our conversation like we never even stopped for that moment for him to explain it to me.

While we talked, Johnny, Two-Bit and Dallas came into the house. It was still summer, so it's not like Dallas or Two-Bit had a job, and at the moment, the other three of us were too young for anyone to really hire us. "What're you two up to?" Johnny asked sitting down with us on the couch.

Pony and I looked at each other then back to the other three standing in the room. "Just talking really," I shrugged.

"That's it?" Two-Bit asked in a sort of confused time.

Ponyboy nodded, "Yeah."

"So y'all have been just sittin' here, just talking, for how long now?"

The two of us just shrugged.

"Ya see," Dallas started, "This is one of the reasons I always go out and do somethin' that'll get me in trouble."

"I don't get the connection." Johnny gave a confused look.

Dallas sighed a bit. "There ain't always somethin' to do 'round here, ya know? But even where there is, y'all just sit around readin' or somethin'."

I rolled my eyes. "Then what's there to do, almighty Dallas Winston," I mocked, starting to get a little annoyed with him- my tone and actions earning the satisfaction of watching the other three hold in laughter.

He glared at me and I grinned innocently at him. He shook it off and continued, "Rodeo's tonight, we always go early cause I compete with Buck, and Sodapop and Steve always meet us there."

"Then let's go," Ponyboy shrugged and we stood up. The rest of us nodded and we all left the house.

Before we left the house, we left a note for Darry telling him where we were going and how long we'd be out. On our way, we also stopped by the "head-quarters" of where he worked and asked his boss to tell him where we were when he got back. The note at the house was basically there in case his boss forgot to tell him. After we stopped there, we stopped over at the DX, making sure Steve and Soda were still gonna meet us there later like they always did.

When we got here, there wasn't anyone there yet, which was expected. It didn't officially start till about six in the evening, and it was barely even five yet. We always went early, and for a few reasons. One: Sometimes we would help Dallas and Buck with the horses and sometimes the bulls- more the horses- which took a little while. Two: there was usually nothing better to do before it started, considering some places in town would close early due to the fact that even _they_ were getting ready to go. Three: if no one was there yet, we could get better seats to watch.

Dallas went off to the stables. Two-Bit went off to… to do whatever he does at these things to meet up with us later. So I stayed with Ponyboy and Johnny. "Did y'all hear that last time we were here, someone accused Dal of cheating? It was 'bout a week or two ago I think," Johnny said as we walked.

Ponyboy and I shook our heads and gave looks of disbelief. Johnny nodded, "It wasn't too long ago. But someone really did say that he cheated."

It was kind of a hard thing to believe. Everyone knew what Dallas did and how much he got in trouble, he was one that the Soc's knew about good and well. But even with everything that he did, nearly everyone knew that he never, and I mean _never_ cheated at these things when we he would compete. Competing in rodeo's is something, that I believed, he truly loved to do and enjoyed doing, and I mean more than causing trouble around town.

"That guy must've wanted to die earlier than planned, and have a painful death at that too," Ponyboy said.

"I think the guy was drunk, but either way, Dal was reading to kill the guy. You were here that day, Rain. Remember? You were here, cause I remember talking to ya, but you went off somewhere else before the fight happened."

I thought for a minute till it clicked, "Oh yeah! I was walkin' around lookin' for y'all once it was over and I saw a huge crowd near the stables. Figured somethin' was going on and I didn't wanna get into trouble so I kept on walking."

"Good move," Johnny chuckled.

We eventually went over to the stables to see if Dallas and Buck needed any help. By then, Soda and Steve had gotten there, and I we weren't shocked to see Soda already by the stables, considering how much he loved horses. I understood that, I actually loved horses too, almost as much as him. There was one horse that I really liked to see, his name was Sport. He was kinda wild, but he was calm around me and a few other people. The only reason he was wild was cause he had been in a bad home when they bought him, and he would get nervous around other people and it seemed like he had trust issues if you asked me. Dallas would let me in sometimes after the rodeo ended or during the week before people came and just let me ride him around.

When we got to the stables, I went right to where Sport's stall was. Just like he always did, he jumped when I first walked up to his stall, but he calmed down when I stepped to the side of his head where he could see me. I took a sugar cube from a bucket near the whole stables and fed it to him then stroked his head slowly and gently. "You really like Sport don't ya?" someone said behind me, making me jump. I turned and saw a smiling Soda.

I chuckled a bit and looked back at Sport. I nodded, "Yeah. He's been here a while, what's it, two years?"

He shrugged. "That's a question for Dallas. Anyway, seems like Sport really likes you too."

"Yeah, I guess so. He's pretty calm around me."

"Well then why don't you compete?"

My eyes widened a bit. "Compete? Like, in the horse races?"

He nodded. "Sure, why not?"

I continued to stroke Sport. "I… I don't know, Soda. I mean, I've seen those guys who compete, they're pretty rough. I mean, I've never even seen a girl compete in those races!"

"All the more reason for you to compete in it! Besides, you're the toughest girl I know, and you're the best person who can even tame Sport, just ask Dallas or Buck, they'll agree with me… c'mon, why don't ya just go see if ya can. No one ever races Sport in this thing, so it ain't like he'll be taken, so it's not like ya gotta learn to ride another horse."

I bit my lip. "But Soda-"

"C'mon, I'll race with ya," he offered, "It'll be fun."

I looked at Sport then down, then sighed in defeat, "Fine, I'll go ask if it's too late to sign up for the race."

He smiled in victory and pulled me over to where Buck was, since he knew more about how to sign up for these, while I could feel my heart pounding outta my chest out a million miles an hour.

**Ok, most of this chapter was not how I wrote it down in my notebook originally, I kinda had writer's block when I was writing this but then I was typing this, and I didn't like how I originally wrote most of it, so I changed a little more than half of the whole chapter. But honestly, I'm pretty happy with this chapter so it worked out I guess cause mostly before I changed it, this was gonna be a "filler chapter" or whatever the heck those things are called, but somehow I made it work for the next chapter so that worked.**

**ANYWAY! VERY IMPORTANT!**

**I now have five stories that I'm currently working on. Five on fanfiction. net, and three on wattpad.**

**Before the Love (This one, both)**

**Cherry Flavored Soda (fanfiction. net)**

**The Nighthawks (both)**

**Loyalty (recently requested, fanfiction. net)**

**The Power of Love (soon to be both)**

**The Power of Love is a collection of one-shots/short stories of what happens based on the second bonus chapter in To Love a Greaser. It will take place over however many years, and will include things that I said happened in the future for them all. Cherry Flavored Soda and Loyalty are both requests for fanfiction. net that are Cherry/Soda romance stories. Nighthawks is an Expendables stories( for those on wattpad, you know it is the spinoff from The Teenage Mercenary series which has Carter Ross, Lauren Christmas and Krista Jensen)**

**Because of these stories, I will not update too quickly, I will try to update every week for each story or at least every other week, I apologize in advance for any late updates. Also, because I am currently reading a series right now, the North and South series (which is what the 1985 show was based off of with Patrick Swayze and James Read) so that is also a factor in updating.**

**Anyway, hope you enjoyed the chapter, and sorry for the long author's note. Peace from all the hippies of the world! =^-^=**


	7. Chapter 7

"You sure you wanna do this, Rain? You outta all people know Sport can be pretty wild," Dallas said.

I sighed and bit my lip, then nodded, "yeah, I'm sure."

He sighed a bit and shrugged, "Alright, but you better be careful, 'specially with that side of yours from a few months back… I mean, I know Sport likes you, but still just be careful, got it?"

I nodded. "Yeah, I got it."

"Buck can sign ya up over there." He pointed to where Buck was at a table where people could sign up to compete. I nodded and walked over.

I didn't know Buck too well, but we knew each other. He called me Rain, just like everyone else cause he knew that _no one_ called me "Raina". I knew him and Dallas knew each other pretty well, pretty much cause Dallas always crashed at his place, so I guess that's how. I think almost everyone in the whole town knew Buck to some extent cause of the parties he threw. I had never actually been to one of those, but I wasn't into that kinda stuff like most other Greasers. That's what was different about me compared to other girls or just any Greaser, I guess. I didn't smoke, I didn't drink, I didn't party. Sure my friends smoked and drank sometimes, but it didn't bother me none, unless I did it myself, then I'd have a problem. I'd be laid up in bed for a week cause I couldn't take it.

Buck questioned if I was sure about the whole think. I tried my best to sound convincing when I said yes, and thankfully, he bought my act. Another thing I was thankful about was that Soda had kept his word and said he would race if I did cause his name was listed for those who were. But unfortunately, that didn't really ease up my nerves by a lot.

"Maybe I should just back out," I sighed and looked down at the ground.

"I don't think you should," Johnny said.

My eyes widened a little bit at his answer. "Why not? You don't think it's too dangerous?"

"We're Greasers, _nothin'_ is too dangerous."

He managed to get me to laugh, so that was a good sign. "That's true… but everyone has a limit."

He nodded. "Good point… not to sound rude or nothin' but, why'd ya even sign up?"

"Sodapop convinced me to."

"I should've expected it to be him… well, I think you'll be fine. That horse don't like no one. I've seen other people try to ride him, and he always throws 'em off, except I never saw him throw you off. SO he must like you."

"He can still be wild."

He thought for a moment. "Has he ever thrown ya off?"

I shook my head, "No."

"Then you should be fine."

"Either way, he can still freak out at any minute and throw me off or somethin'."

"He ain't gonna hurt you. He hasn't in the past, and he won't now."

There was still another half hour till the whole thing started, and fifty minutes till the horse race. With every minute that passed, I could feel my heart start to beat a little faster. And I don't mean in excitement, I mean in nervousness. But, it was normal to be nervous, right? I mean, I never did this before, even with a calm horse, so that was normal right?

I was too nervous to even sit and watch everyone and Dallas compete in the competition before the horse race. I stood up from my seat with a heavy sigh and headed out of the row we were all in. I got questioning looks from the gang, but before they could question my actions or where I was going, I just shook my head and walked away from the benches.

I wasn't too much like most girls, but when I shook my head without saying a word, they knew that I didn't wanna talk about it quite yet.

I got to the stables and walked over to where Sport's stall. There were other people around at each individual stall, and I got some weird looks when they saw me, _a girl_, walk to Sport. I did get one impressed look from some tall blonde guy, but he just walked away with another horse. I looked at Sport and ignored the chatter between everyone around me and stroked his head. "I'm trusting you, alright?... you ain't gonna hurt me, right?" I asked. He blew from his snout and whinnied a little bit. I let out a sigh, "Geez, I hope that's a yes."

"What's a yes?"

I jumped at the voice from behind me. I turned and saw Dallas leaning against a wooden post of the stable, a smirk planted on his face. "You scared me," I said.

He nodded and walked toward me, "I figured as much."

I looked down then back at him. "Shouldn't you be out there? Competeing?"

He shook his head. "I'm done, that ended. They're setting up for the horse race."

I glanced at a person who walked past us with another horse. "Oh, alright…"

"You ready? They're about to call for whoever's racin'."

"Sure."

He sighed. "Look, I don't know if you were able to tell before or not, but I ain't too fond of you doin' this. But you'll be fine."

I gave a confused look. "Ok, you just contradicted yourself and everything you just said made no sense whatsoever."

"Whatever!" he raised his voice and sighed again. "I mean, that I ain't too fond of anyone ridin' Sport, but I kow you'll be fine cause I've seen you ride him. He don't let no one else ride him 'cept you. Pretty sure that means somethin'."

"He can still act up-"

I was cut off when Buck came to the back. "Rain, they'e callin' for you, they gotta start the race and if you're not there in a minute, you're disqualified."

I sighed, "Alright, I'll be right out." He nodded and went back out.

"That's your call," Dallas said, "Good luck." He turned to leave then stopped and looked at me over his shoulder, "Even if you don't win, try to beat Soda at least, he's the one who convinced you to do this." He smirked a bit and went out.

I let out another sigh, looked back to Sport, then opened his stall. I took the reins and led him out slowly, making sure no one was too close around so he didn't hurt anyone. There was another person a little ahead of me as I walked out and followed behind them. I noticed his hair, and it looked familiar, the way it was done and it's color. I shook it off until we were out in the center as the few other people got their horses ready in each station. I looked to the one to my left and saw the guy who was in front of me, that it was Soda. He looked up at me and grinned, like he planned that we would be right next to each other.

"_Ladies and gentlemen, we now have the horse race!" _the overhead voice called and sent the whole place into a clapping and screaming mess. He continued once they calmed down, "_In the first stall, we have James Steel, who will be riding Igneous- which is almost always a winning pair!"_ The crowd cheered again and I saw the tall blonde guy wave, then glance at me and wink. I rolled my eyes and he turned back around, a smirk playing on his face.

"_Our next competitor is Sodapop Curtis, who will be riding Ginger!" _ I could hear screams go all throughout the place, a lot of them being from girls when the announcer said "Sodapop Curtis", since every girl in the whole town was nearly in love with the guy. Girls had told me some nasty things and to stay away from him cause I would hang around him sometimes at the DX, but they knew we were friends, and they were jealous out of their minds. He waved just like the first guy.

"_Our third competitor is newcomer, Rain Johnson, who'll be riding Sport! First girl to ever race one of these horses, and choosing Sport- if that ain't crazy I don't know what the hell is, people!"_ I heard a few people cheering, mostly my friends from where we had been sitting. I gave a small smile. _"_Wave," Soda whispered from beside me. I did as he said and he smiled and nodded.

"_Our last competitor is our champion for the last few months, Jake Williams, who'll be riding Desperado! Rain, you couldn't have chosen a better day to start than with this guy around!"_ the announcer laughed. I looked at the guy on my right, who waved to the crowd and the crown was even louder than they were with James.

"_Alright, you all know the rules, you cheat you're out!... alright, y'all ready? On your mark, get set…"_ I heard a gun. "_GO!"_

**CLIFFHANGER! XD **

**I had to, I'm sorry! XD it's mostly cause I know nearly nothing about horse racing and I need to find out some stuff about it, cause that's not something we really do here too much in (New) Jersey, it's too cold most of the year that we don't ever get the chance, plus I know almost nothing about horses in general.**

**Anyway, hope you liked this chapter! Peace from all the hippies of the world! =^-^=**


	8. Chapter 8

"_GO!"_

The individual stalls opened and we all got the horses to start. I don't really remember much of the course or how things were set up for the race, I just tried to avoid any obstacles in the way that I had to get Sport to either jump over or go around, more of the jumping over hurdles. I knew James got close to me with Igneous a few times and for a while, but I tried my best to ignore him as best as I could and kept moving Sport as far away as possible from him without getting him too close to Soda on Ginger or Jake on Desperado.

I saw James and Igneous get close to Soda and Ginger toward the end of the last lap around. I heard Igneous whinny, then saw Ginger start to buck and whinny, like she was scared. I glanced at Soda, who looked one more scare away from getting thrown off or even falling off- and I knew it was cause of James and Igneous. I could feel my ears get red and my blood boiled a little bit, knowing he was cheating and wasn't afraid to hurt people in order to beat them in a competition.

I then made it my personal goal that, even if I didn't win the race, I would beat James for nearly hurting my friend.

I was able to get Sport to go faster than Igneous, and actually, just neck and neck with Desperado. Soda had finally gotten Ginger to calm down and was catching up with us all again and a little behind Igneous. I quickly glanced back at them for a second, sending a quick glare at James, whether he saw it or not I didn't care, as long as it was there and aimed at him.

"_We have a close one! Newcomer Rain, may actually be our new champion!"_ the announcer called out.

At that point, I tried to get Sport to go a little faster, but not too much that he would freak out. I could see the black and white checkered line and just kept going, and stopped Sport a little after I saw that we had passed the black and white checkered line. I wasn't sure who won yet, but I knew that I saw a flash from a camera from the corner of my eye at one point, but not sure what the proof was, considering I had been close with Jake and Desperado.

"_And the winner is: Sport and his rider, Rain Johnson!"_

I looked up when I heard my name with an expression of both shock and confusion, not sure if I had heard the announcer correctly or not. I felt a hand on my shoulder and turned to see a smiling Soda. "Rain, you won!" he smiled.

My eyes widened, "I did?" He nodded. I felt a huge smile on my face and I hugged him, not knowing really how to react. "I've never won anything like this before in my life!"

He laughed and hugged back. "Ya see? _This_ is why I made you enter!"

I laughed but stopped for a second when I remembered about him nearly getting hurt. "Are you ok? That guy James nearly got you hurt by scaring Ginger."

He nodded. "I'm fine. I think I may have pulled something in my shoulder tryin' to get balanced, but I'll live."

I nodded and we went back to bring Ginger and Sport back to their stalls at the stables. When we got there, Dallas was already there, and the other four had just gotten there the same time as the two of us. Ponyboy and Steve went over to Soda, probably to make sure he was ok. Johnny, Dallas and Two-Bit came over to me. One with a smirk planted on his face, another with a small smile, the last with a playful grin on his face. I'm sure you can tell which was which.

"You are officially the first girl to ever enter one of these things, and the first girl to ever win first on her first time," Two-Bit grinned, making me chuckle.

"Told ya he wouldn't throw ya off, but you didn't wanna believe me," Dallas shrugged, a small smirk playing on his lips.

"You did really good, Rain, those guys didn't know what him 'em," Johnny smiled.

I chuckled again, "I guess so… but did you guys see what that guy did when he nearly got Soda thrown off?" They all nodded. "Ya know he did it on purpose, right?"

Two-Bit scoffed. "Shoot, he didn't even try to hide it."

"The asshole didn't even get called out… maybe we should call 'im out?" Dallas still had the smirk on his face.

Johnny gave a nervous look, then ground his top and bottom teeth together for a second. "I don't think so you guys."

Dallas let out a disappointed sigh. "Fine… but next time the bum cheats on anything here, I'm kicking his ass."

I bit back a laugh. I knew he was serious and that he really would if he had to. We all knew that and everyone knew who he was. And if it ever happened to Soda again, everyone knew who he was too- and if someone tried to hurt him, he'd have nearly every girl in town pissed off of them and everyone knows when a girl is pissed off, no matter who she is, life is hell… not to mention that Darry wouldn't be too happy if someone hurt one of his brothers.

We all headed out back to the benches to watch the next event. I stopped walking when I saw Igneous and his rider. "I'll meet up with y'all, go on ahead," I said. Before they could protest, I turned and headed toward the guy who the announcer said was James Steel. I went to back toward the stables and stopped for a second when I saw him tying up Igneous in his stall to keep him there till he closed the door. When I got to him, I tapped him on the shoulder.

He turned and a smirked appeared on his face. I held back an eye roll and sigh. "Hey, uh… Rain? Right?" he asked.

I nodded, "Yeah that's me."

"Yeah… hey nice job with the race before. You're gonna be pretty popular 'round here for a while cause of that win you got. Considering you're the first girl to ever enter, that would've got you some cred 'round here, but the fact that ya won, that's pretty impressive."

"Yeah, I guess so… but I wanted to talk to you about somethin'." I crossed my arms over my chest.

He nodded and leaned against a post. "What's goin' on?"

"I know what you did out there during the race… you could've gotten my friend hurt."

He chuckled like I was outta my mind, "I don't know what the hell you're talkin' about."

I shook my head and jutted my bottom jaw out to the side for a quick moment. "You must think I'm some idiot like most of these other Greaser girls 'round here, cause if it ain't obvious enough, I _am_ a Greaser... but you know _exactly_ what I'm talkin' about, and you know it was downright low and dirty, and that's comin' from me, and I ain't so clean myself. I knew you wouldn't admit to it, I'm not an idiot. But I'm warning you, _James_… do it again, not just to my friends but to anyone… or you'll be sorry," I growled, slowly walking closer to him to try and get in his face.

He chuckled again. "Yeah, sure darlin'… I ain't scared a' you." His smirk still in place on his face and he looked unimpressed.

I glared at him and kneed him right where it hurt. He dropped down to the floor on his knees as his eyes widened a little and his smirk disappeared from his face. I leaned down at my waist to get eye level with him. "I warned ya." I pushed him down on his back by the shoulders then turned around to go back to the benches where the gang was, leaving him there in pain- which I was fine with.

"Where were ya?" Two-Bit asked when I got back to the benches with them.

I sat down between him and Soda and shrugged a bit, "Just getting rid of some trash 'round the stables." He nodded and turned back to the event that just started.

**Oooooooooooh, sassy Rain.**

**By the way, if you read "To Love a Greaser" and you remember **_**James**_** who worked at Rusty's garage with her, this is the same James… he just didn't remember her in that story and she didn't remember him cause it was long before anything happened with them yet in the other story, cause he didn't live in Tulsa yet.**

**Anyway, was this chapter good? I'm not sure cause like I said in the last author's note, I don't know much 'bout rodeo's or horse racing or nothing cause I'm from (New) Jersey, and as far as I know, they don't do nothing like that here in Jersey. Wanna know what we do for fun? IN the summer, we go down the shore (to the beach but no one is jersey says "to the beach", we say "down the shore") and for day trips, we got to Philadelphia or New York City cause we're right in between two tourist attractions and we only go to day trips there cause we know it's too crowded in both to actually live there.**

**Well, that's at least what me and my friends do, I don't know 'bout no one else, but that's me and my friends.**

**Also, like I called it, people from New Jersey don't usually call it "New jersey"… we call it "Jersey". I don't know why, but we just do.**

**OH! And we go to West Point for football games.**

**Anyway, enough about Jersey… hope you liked the chapter! Bye! Peace from all the hippies of the world! =^-^=**


	9. Chapter 9

As the months went by, any commotion from when I got first at the horse race finally started to go away and things started to calm down. It felt good once the hype ended. And cause I was the first girl both to compete and to win, no less riding Sport- who everyone knew was crazy- it was pretty crazy and I bet people thought I was nuts for it. They had my picture in the newspaper on the front page for a day with the headline: _FIRST GIRL TO EVER WIN AT THE RODEO! _And then for nearly two weeks, they had something about me. Sodapop had insisted that we keep all the newspapers, for the future generations as he claimed, but I knew he just wanted to keep them to tease me cause he knew I hated having as much as attention as I did from that.

School had started back up; I was a sophomore with Johnny, Ponyboy was a freshman, and Two-Bit was a junior again… yes, again. Long story.

Darry, Sodapop and Steve all had their jobs. Darry in roofing and construction, Soda and Steve at the DX. I still thought they were all too young to be working as much as they did, but it wasn't any of my business or my place to say anything about it.

Dallas was in the cooler- if you don't know what I mean by _cooler_, it means _jail_. I didn't know why he was there this time, but I'm pretty sure he was there for ninety days this time, which was shorter compared to a lot of other times. Like I said, I had no idea why he was there, but considering the time, probably nothing _too_ bad.

The school year had started out weird, but as the time progressed, Angela Shepard starting hanging around me. At first, she had slowly started to hang around me; saying hi in the halls, sitting with me at lunch, even talking with me a little while I was walking around town. But like I said, slowly but surely it got even more. She had invited me over to her place to sleep over- which I thought was _really_ weird- but I still said yes, mostly cause I had nothing better to do.

I was walking to the Curtis' place but stopped when I heard someone yelling in a familiar voice, yelling a couple of different names that I knew all too well, even mine. I turned and saw Darry, Dallas, Soda, Steve and Two-Bit run in the same direction. I gave a confused look and when I looked around, saw Johnny standing and watching form a distance by a house. I ran over by him while the five started to chase after a red car. "What's goin' on?" I asked.

Johnny sighed a bit, "I think they got Ponyboy." He started toward the others and I followed behind him.

"…kid's okay?" someone was asking when we walked up.

"I'm okay," Ponyboy answered softly then looked at Dallas, "I thought you were in the cooler for ninety days?"

Dallas rubbed his hands together a bit then lit a cigarette. "Got out early, good behavior, man."

We all walked to the front porch of the house, all of them saying their plans for the night. "Gonna come with us to the drive-in, Rain?" Johnny asked.

I shook my head, "Last time I went to that place with Dal around, he was drunk and nearly locked lips with me." Dallas shot a look my way and I glared right back at him. "Besides, I already told Angela I'd go over their place tonight."

Ponyboy gave a confused look, "Angela?"

"Shepard."

"Since when are you so chummy with _her_?"

I scoffed and shrugged. "I'm not, but she asked me to go over her place, I dunno why. Figured if I said yeah, maybe she won't ask me again soon."

"Well, good luck with that," he looked to Johnny and Ponyboy, "I'll see y'all later." Then he walked off after the two nodded at him.

…_that night…_

I walked back to my house and snuck in through the window of my bedroom. When I got in, I made sure the door to my room was locked then went to my closet and grabbed a small knapsack, then put whatever I would need in it to stay overnight somewhere. I put in an extra pair of clothes for the morning, clothes to sleep in, and a few other necessities including a few blankets and a pillow. I finished packing my bag, then snuck back out the window quietly, leaving the door locked and ran till I was around the corner form where my house was.

By the time I got to the Shepard's place, the sun was almost down. I figured Dallas, Johnny and Ponyboy would nearly be at the drive-in by now, unless Dallas got them arrested. _"Maybe I should just ditch this and meet them there_," I thought. I sighed and shrugged, then walked to the front door and rang the doorbell. A moment later, the door opened and Tim appeared. "Hey Rain," he greeted, "Angela said you'd be stoppin' by for the night."

I nodded, "Yeah… sorry to inform you, but you're stuck with me for the night."

He chuckled and let me in. "Believe it or not, I'll actually be at the drive-in."

"If you see Ponyboy, Dallas or Johnny there tonight, tell them I say hey alright? They're supposed to be goin' there." He nodded.

Tim and I had a weird friendship. Actually, we were more of acquaintances than anything else. We never hung out really, but we weren't strangers. We talked, said hi at school or in town, that kind of stuff. As long as we had known each other, we always had friendly conversations- as long as at the moment we were cool with the Shepard gang. But either way, once you got past the "hood" that he was, he was a pretty tuff guy.

Tim led me to Angela's room. He knocked on the door then when it opened, showed Angela in flannel pajama pants and a tank top. She smiled and pulled me in, closing the door behind me to prevent her brother from coming in. "Hey Rain," she smiled.

I gave an unsure look, "Hey Angela… look, can I ask ya about something?"

She nodded. " 'Course."

"Why have you been so nice to me and hanging around me so much?"

"What do you mean?"

"Well at school, you've been hanging around me more than you ever did. Now I ain't seeing that it's bad, but I'm just curious why."

She sighed. "Cause Tim thought I should find different people to hang out with and when I asked like who, he said people like you."

I nodded slowly. "Look, no offense or nothin', I'm flattered that y'all think of me that way, but I'm just not used to hanging out with girls. I'm just used to hanging around guys almost all my life."

"I respect that."

"I'll still stay the night and give it a shot," I smiled at her.

She smiled back, "Thanks, Rain."

The rest of the night we spent basically just hanging. We watched movies that were playing on the television that ended at twelve midnight like everything on the television did. After the movies ended, we went back up to her room and talked about whatever came into our heads.

The night had proved something to me: Angela wasn't so bad. I'd always seen her as this girl who both tough and tuff, most Greaser girls weren't both of those. But I had started to believe all that I saw her do outside of school and in town was all a thing for show to show that she was tough and so no one would mess with her. But throughout the whole night, she eased up and I saw her differently than outside of the house. She was alright.

We fell asleep at about three in the morning. We woke up when we heard loud knocking on the bedroom door. "Rain?... Rain, there's a phone call for you," Tim said through the door.

I groaned and looked at Angela's clock… _4:32am…_I got up and opened the door. "Who is it?" I asked him groggily.

"Darry."

I gave a confused look. "Darry?" He nodded and handed me the phone.

"_Hello? Rain?"_ I heard in Darry's voice.

"Darry, is that you?"

"_Yeah… look, ya gotta come to the house right now." _His voice was full of panic.

"Uh, sure… what's goin' on and why do you sound so nervous?" I yawned.

"_Johnny and Ponyboy ran away!"_

**Hola mi *however you say readers in spanish***

**Ok, as you can probably tell, the story is now at the point where Johnny killed Bob and him and Johnny and Ponyboy ran away to Windrixville. I'm gonna work this out as best as I can. I know most stories that have the actual book and movie in the plot, usual their own character was with them when they ran away, but I have it that Rain **_**wasn't**_** with them, but- you know what, no spoilers. :3**

**Part of the reason I did that was cause I wanted to be different like how I'm different with everything else in my interests contrary to the rest of the teenage population, so I like being different in what I write too. Plus I was too lazy cause then if I had her go with them, I wouldn't be able to figure out if I should go by the wording in the book or in the movie, so I just decided this.**

**Oh, by the way! I saw "Pretty in Pink" recently and seriously, the way how they had the rich kids and the poor kids seriously reminded me of "The Outsiders", it was crazy.**

**Oh, also! I watched "My Bodyguard" from 1980, it was so weird and Matt Dillon had (what I call) dirt on his lip! XP that's when a guy thinks they have facial hair, but in reality it's like peach fuzz above their lip (my best friend's boyfriend has that, so does her ex)**

**Anyway! Hope you liked the chapter! Peace from all the hippies of the world! =^-^=**


	10. Chapter 10

My eyes widened and I shook my head to try and wake up a little more. "Wait, what do you mean _they ran away_?"

"Ponyboy ran out the house before and he still hasn't come home so I went out to see if anyone knew anything about it. I guess he asked Johnny to go with him when he ran. I got to Buck Merrill's place and Dal was there and told me they ran away," he answered in a shaky voice.

"Did you call the rest?"

"Yeah… look, can you come to the house? I just wanna make sure nothin' happens to anyone else or I feel like I'll go crazy."

"Yeah, sure. I'll be right over." And with that he hung up.

I told the two Shepard siblings what had happened and that I had to go. Tim had offered to walk me there, saying he would've driven me but the tires on his car had been slashed earlier that night. I thanked him for the offer, knowing it'd be better if I went on my own because of the situation. I didn't actually say the reason, I had only said I didn't wanna be a bother and he actually bought it.

I packed my overnight bag up and left the house, still wearing the flannel pajama pants and _the Doors_ t-shirt I had changed into to go to sleep in, and slipped on my sneakers then left the Shepard's house to go the Curtis' house. I thanked the Shepard's for letting me stay over, kinda thankful that I hadn't decided to ditch the whole thing.

When I got to the house, Soda was staring at the phone like he was waiting for a call, Darry was pacing, and Two-Bit, Dallas, and Steve were playing cards to most likely, take their minds a little off the situation. All eyes fell on me when I walked in, but then almost in less than a second everyone went back to their previous activities. I decided to sit at the table and try to get my mind off the situation with the three. "Care to join next game?" Two-Bit asked, holding up the deck of cards in his hand.

"Yeah, sure," I answered. I nudged me head toward the two nervous brothers, "How they holdin' up?"

"Terrible," Steve sighed, "Darry hasn't stopped pacing for nearly twenty minutes. Soda's better, before he couldn't stop bawlin' about it."

"I hate seein' them like this," Two-Bit sighed and handed out the cards between the four of us.

We all kept on doing whatever we had been doing for the majority of the night till we all dozed off. When I woke up, I looked around and- despite the situation- had to hold in a laugh at the sight in front of me. Darry was asleep, but was leaned up against the wall. Soda was spread out in the chair closest to the phone. Steve was leaned up against the chair Soda was in, his head tilted back onto the cushion. Two-Bit was on the couch. Dallas was up against the front edge of the couch. And judging by where I was when I woke up, I had been asleep on a blanket spread out on the floor.

Really? They made the only girl they were friends with sleep on the floor?

I pushed myself up off the ground and quietly made my way to the front door to get to the porch, doing my best not to wake any of them up. I somehow managed to get outside to the porch without any of them waking up and without stepping on any of them. I don't know how, so don't ask me how.

I went outside and sat down on the porch. "Hey Rain," someone said from behind a few minutes later, making me jump outta my skin and nearly scream. I turned and saw Darry. "Sorry," he mumbled.

I waved it off, "It's cool… did I wake you up?"

He shook his head and sat down next to me. "I've been awake for nearly two hours… Rain, can I uh, talk to you about something?"

"Of course."

He let out a sigh. "Johnny and Ponyboy running away is… it's my fault."

I gave a confused look. "What do you mean it's your fault? How is it your fault?"

"Last night, Ponyboy got home real late… and I yelled at him. Soda defended him, then I yelled at Soda. Then Pony defended him, and I lost my temper and… and I hit Ponyboy… hard. He fell then ran out the house."

"Darry…"

"I didn't mean to do it, ya know. I just… I don't know, lost my temper, I guess. I didn't mean to hit him, it just happened."

"Darry, it's ok. You didn't mean to."

"But I still did it!" He sighed again and his voice started to shake, "I was… I was just real worried cause I thought something might've happened to him and I didn't want us to be separated, ya know? And it happened."

"How long did you and Soda look for them?" I asked.

"About an hour… we came back and called all of you to come over, make sure the rest of you were alright or if y'all knew anything about them running off."

"Well, Dallas or Two-Bit might. They went to the drive-in too."

"Soda and I asked them already, they both said they don't know. Soda doesn't believe Dallas though, that he don't know nothin' about it."

The paper boy drove past the house and tossed a paper our direction. Darry got up from the porch and picked it up. He turned to come back on the porch, but stopped and looked at the cover page of the paper with a weird and confused look. He unfolded it and started to read over the cover page. His confused facial expression slowly changed and soon became with fear and worry, even more than he had before or when we all first got to the house hours earlier.

"Darry?... What's wrong? What happened?" I asked, getting up from the porch. He handed me the paper and I opened it to the front page and my eyes widened at the headline: _TEENAGE BOY FROM WEST SIDE OF TULSA STABBED AND KILLED BY TWO BOYS FROM THE EAST SIDE_. I looked down and began to read the article:

"_Three boys came to the station late last night saying that their friend had been stabbed and he got killed by two boys from the East Side at about two or three in the morning. I asked them why they were all even out, they said they were at some birthday party for another friend. They told me where it happened so I decided to go out and see what all the commotion was about. And sure enough when I got there, their friend was lying down on the ground- dead- and there was a pool of blood around where he was stabbed and blood all through the fountain he was next to. They said it was two boys. The one who had the knife they said looked to be about sixteen or seventeen years old with dark eyes and dark long hair, and there was some sort of mark on the left side of his face. The second boy was a little smaller than the first boy. They said he looked about thirteen or fourteen years old, fifteen at most, with long brown hair and kinda small."_ The police chief had said in a statement.

I looked at Darry who was sitting on the porch with his hands over his face. He moved them down that they were just covering his mouth and his fingers were on the edge of his nose. "When they get back home, what's gonna happen to them? What if they take Ponyboy away cause they don't think I can take of him, they'll take Soda too. And what about Johnny? His parents won't care, so what's gonna happen to him?" he asked quietly.

I sat back down on the couch next to him. "It'll be ok," I started, "Whatever happens, they'll be fine. They're smart."

"He's my baby brother… if something terrible happens to him, I dunno what I'll do… I can't lose him, either of them, we've already lost Mom and Dad. I'm not losing my brother's too. I'm not losing them, I'm not gonna let it happen." His face showed an expression that was a mix of worry, fear, confusion and the most apparent- determination. Determined that he would do whatever he could that when they came back, he'd do anything he could to keep them all together and not be separated.

**Ahhhhhhhhhh they ran away! No!**

**This chapter is mostly to show a little thing about how Rain and Darry act with each other, that she's the only one he can totally freak out (emotionally) to and for once, not be thought of us "Superman" or "Superdope" and that the hero broke down (other than Soda, he can too)**

**Anyway, until this story is finished, I won't really be working on my others cause this is about half way done, so I wanna get this done as soon as possible so then I have one less thing to worry about… makes sense right? Good. **

**Peace from all the hippies of the world! =^-^=**


	11. Chapter 11

**Warning: use of some vulgar words that I don't usually use, and Rain gets pretty mad at Dallas, not outta character, more like anger mixed with fear**

…_three days later…_

"Were you with them the night that it happened?" the police officer asked.

I shook my head, "Hours earlier I was, but not when they were at the drive-in. Johnny and Ponyboy were going there with our friend Dallas Winston-"

"We know Dallas Winston," the second officer sighed in annoyance.

"Anyway… they had offered for me to come with them, but I was going to a friend of ours house for a sleepover that night. I was thinking about ditching and going with them, but I didn't. Around three in the morning, they got a call from Darry and he told me the two ran away, then the next day in the newspaper we saw about the article about the other boy."

"Do you have any idea where they might have run off to?"

I shook my head again. "Not a clue… hey, can I say something about Johnny and Ponyboy?"

The officer nodded, "Of course."

"If they really are the ones who killed the So- I mean, the boy… I doubt they did it on purpose."

"What do you mean?"

"They 're both quiet and neither could hurt a fly. I'm sure you two know about the rivalry between the kids from the West Side and me and everyone else from the East Side, but I can promise you that if the two of them did do it, it was definitely self-defense. I mean, it's not like we don't have to use self-defense when the kids from the other side of town start to bother us."

"If they bother you all like you say they do, why don't any of you contact any of us here?"

I literally wanted to slap this cop in the face for their question about whether we contacted them at all, we all eventually gave up cause they never believed us and thought we were all the bad guys, especially since we were friends with Dallas, but they should've believed us cause we were friends with Darry. "We have tried to but, it uh… never works out."

The two officers nodded and led me out the room, following behind me to the hallway. I looked at Soda, who looked as worried as ever. Steve looked worried about him and was trying to calm him down. Dallas was calm, cool and collected. Two-Bit looked concerned by the situation, but not nervous. Darry looked worried and bounced his leg up and down.

I saw down on the edge of the bench next to Steve. We all looked up when the two officers who were basically interrogating all of us, and they called Dallas in. We all rolled our eyes a bit at that, not sure what he would say or do.

"I still can't believe this," Soda said quietly, but loud enough for us all to hear, "Sweet little Ponyboy and innocent little Johnny. It just don't make sense."

"Nothing makes sense in the world," I mumbled along with a small sigh.

"But why them? Outta all the people in the world, why them?! They don't deserve anything bad to happen to them! Ponyboy's a good kid, always was. And Johnny, hell, he _really_ doesn't deserve this with what he deals with at home."

"Ya know why this stuff happens, right? I'll tell ya why: cause them Socs think they're so much better than us, everyone thinks that too but in reality, they're worse than hoods or Curly Shepard, who we all know is pretty bad... it makes me sick," Steve growled.

'It's never gonna stop," Two-Bit shrugged, "Whether it's Greasers and Socs or somethin' else, there's always gonna be one group that thinks they're better, and they're gonna make everyone else's life a living hell."

"He's right," Darry sighed, "Unfortunately."

Dallas came out from the room, looking like nothing happened. He sat back down and they asked Darry to go into the room where we all were being questioned. He was hesitant at first. He glanced at me. _"You gonna be ok?"_ I mouthed to him. He nodded a little, then glanced at his even more nervous younger brother, then followed the officers in.

It continued like that for the rest of the day, calling us all in and out. Then we had to say if the sketch artists had accurate looks for the sketches of the two , and unfortunately, they were almost exactly right, with the exception of a few minor things, but that's cause it was dark outside when they whole thing happened. None of us wanted to answer, but we had to.

I'd never really been at a police station before for this long. I'm not saying I haven't been in one I have a few times actually, but like I said- never this long. Plus, this was the farthest I'd ever been into a station cause usually I would be in the front lobby or wherever waiting for someone I knew or something to be cleared up. I'd always pray and hope to God that I'd never have to be this far into one, but here I was, sitting in a chair being interrogated about everything.

We eventually were allowed to leave and when we did it was dark out. We went back to the house and decided to take a break considering everything that had happened during the day. We didn't go out, we were all too nervous about the situation and even each other's well-being at this point. "Dallas, you sure you don't know _anything _about where they are?" Soda asked.

Dallas gave a heavy sigh, "Soda, I already told you. I just know that they mentioned Texas."

Two-Bit jumped us from his seat, "Then why don't we go look for 'em! Texas ain't too far from Oklahoma, right? They outta be there by now!"

"No," Dallas said sternly, "The cops'll get all suspicious if we do that."

"Dal," I said, "Can I talk to you outside for a sec?" He nodded and walked out the house behind me and we went to the side of the house. I crossed my arms over my chest, "Where are they?" I asked with no emotion other than a slight annoyance, mixed with a little anger.

He sighed, "I already said I don't know where other than that they mentioned Texas."

"That's bullshit, Dallas."

"Excuse me?"

I grabbed him by the neck of his t-shirt and pushed him up against the side of the house. "Dallas Winston what you're telling me and everyone else in there is complete bullshit. If you don't tell me where they _really_ are and what you know and where those boys are right now, I will personally beat the shit out of you and make sure you never walk properly ever again, do I make myself clear?" I growled at him and tried to hide the shaking in my voice. His eyes were wide at my sudden outburst at him. By now my whole body was shaking. "I said, am I clear?"

He sighed, "Alright, I'll tell you."

I let go of his shirt, backed up a bit and crossed my arms. "Now talk."

"You should be a cop, seriously, man… ok, the night it happened the two of 'em came over to Buck's. I gave 'em some money to get food and whatever else they needed the first day they got there, a gun if they needed it-"

"Why the hell did you give them a gun?!"

"Will you shut up?!" he hissed, then sighed to calm down, "I know they're not gonna use it. Anyway, I gave them directions to get to Windrixville cause there's this abandoned church where they could hide in out there."

"And you just left them there? Alone?"

"I'm not an idiot, Rain… look, I told them once it wasn't the talk of the neighborhood no more, I was gonna go up there and see how they're doin'. I was planning on it in a day or two cause it's already started to calm down a little bit, at least as much as it can."

"I'm comin' with you."

He gave me a weird look. "_No._ No you're not… do you know what could happen if somethin' goes wrong while I'm there?"

"I'll take the risk," I shrugged.

"Are you sure? I mean, you've never got in trouble with the fuzz before or nothin'."

"I just wanna make sure they're ok."

He sighed, "Fine… but if anything happens, don't say I didn't warn you." I nodded and we started back inside toward the house. He stopped and looked at me. "By the way, nice little freak out before," he smirked.

I chuckled a bit, "Thanks… ya know, I only did it cause I'm scared and nervous."

"In a fight, fear is the best thing to have… keeps ya alert." He continued on into the house, leaving me standing there with a confused look on his face, trying to figure out what he meant by that and where he got it from.

**Oooooh look at Rain, I'm so proud of her XD**

**By the way, remember what I had Dallas tell her in that last thing, it'll show up one way or another in the future, trust me**

**Anyway, was this chapter good? Like, did it seem outta character for her? I have no idea, only you can decide that cause you're the reader… I mean I read it too, but that's just to see any typos I made that I never go back and fix.**

**Oh! I saw Paul Blart Mall Cop 2 this past Saturday! It was so funny oh my gahd. And this Thursday I'm going to my friend Jacob's birthday party, then in two Saturday's on the 16****th****, one of my best friend's birthday party… plus mother's day is next Sunday :)**

**Anyway, hope you liked the chapter! Peace from all the hippies of the world =^-^=**


	12. Chapter 12

_...the next day, day four of the runaway…_

"It feels like forever since our last rumble," Two-Bit smiled.

"I still don't see the point in this whole rumble… what's it gonna prove?" I asked and all eyes fell on my like I was nuts.

"Ok, I get where you're comin' from, being a girl and all," Steve started, earning an annoyed look from me, "But these are a big deal. In this one, we get to have our way with the Socs and nothing can prevent it."

"That sill doesn't answer my question."

Darry spoke up, "For this one, if we win, Socs can't step foot here on the East Side. In town, that's a different story, but over here, we're free."

"Shepard's gang'll be there," Soda said, "It's gonna be pretty crazy."

"Just how I like 'em," Dallas chuckled.

The rest of them kept fantasizing about the rumble. Even with what they had been telling me or what I had been hearing from them, I still couldn't understand the enjoyment and excitement they seemed to be getting or even have for these things. Maybe Steve was right, maybe I didn't understand cause I was a girl… geez, I never thought I'd be thinking Steve was right.

"You can't fight in it though," Darry said, looking at me.

I gave a confused look, "Why not?"

"Girls ain't allowed at 'em, "Two-Bit answered, "It's better that way. Lots of these guys fight real rough, more than Shepard's. It gets pretty dangerous."

"The only good reason for fighting is that it's good for blowin' off steam," Darry admitted with a shrug.

"Well, either way, there's talk that it's gonna be skin versus skin, no weapons allowed," Soda said.

"Well that instills confidence," I mumbled so low only I could hear. "So while y'all are at the rumble, what am I supposed to be doing?"

"You're staying here. For anyone who won't be there, mostly girls, it won't be safe to be out until everyone goes home cause there the possibility that someone'll be waiting for a girl to walk out form the other side and… hurt them." Darry's voice started out stern and strict, then kinda nervous as he trailed off a bit.

"And when y'all get back?"

"We take it from there," Steve shrugged.

We all just sat around talking till it got dark, but most of the conversation between the five about the rumble.

No matter what they said or told me about it throughout the night, or even past rumbles, I still didn't get the point or excitement. The only excitement I got from it is that there was gonna be no weapons and the only weapon would be a fist, and maybe your foot to kick someone. There would be no heaters, blades, glass bottles, anything- at least from what we all knew and what the rumors about the upcoming one was. Thankfully, that really did instill some confidence that they'd all be fine, but still made me nervous cause they'd still be fighting, and believe it or not- I didn't like fights.

By the time it was dark out, none of us were completely tired. Dallas stood up and nodded at me, then looked back to the rest, "I'm headin' out… probably go to Buck's."

"Don't get into trouble," Darry called out to him as he headed out the door.

I stood up too. "I gotta go too, I made plans with Angela Shepard again," I said and walked out. Before anyone could protest, I was out the door and following not too far behind Dallas out the house. "Ok," I started once we were around the block, "How're we getting there? Neither of us have money for train tickets."

"Relax, I'll drive us there. Buck lets me use his car," he answered and we walked.

I raised my eyebrows. "_You're _gonna drive?"

He nodded. "Yeah, why?"

"Ok… no offense, Dal- but I've been in a car with you and it never ends well."

"Well that's cause I see you as a friend, Rain."

I rolled my eyes and whacked him in the back of the head, but all while trying to hold back a slight smile from his joke. "You're disgusting."

He smirked, "Thank you."

We went over to Buck's- unfortunately during one of his parties- and asked if we could borrow his car. When he asked us why, Dallas whispered something to him and he nodded then walked off. Dallas went inside and told me to follow him, saying we'd go inside while we waited and hang out till he got back with the keys. I agreed hesitantly, considering I hated just getting within one-hundred feet of the place.

When we got in, the lights had a red tint in the front room. People were dancing and yelling over the music playing throughout the whole place, so loud that I could barely hear myself think. In the side room to the right by the stair case, there was a crowd of people around the pool table watching the current two players, one aligning the queball.

While we waited for Buck, I saw Dallas start to talk up some girl at the bar. _"That's not why we're here," _I thought and rolled my eyes. I figured that while I waited, considering Dallas was there while he waited, I would just go outside till they both decided to show.

I made my way toward the door but stopped when I felt a hand wrap around my arm. I turned quickly and saw the other competitor from the horse race a few months back who had been riding Desperado, Jake Williams. He wasn't standing very straight and stable and he looked like he was gonna fall over from being drunk any moment. "I never said good job for the race," he slurred, "So, good job."

I just nodded and gave a small smile, then shook his hand off of my arm and went outside. I somehow managed to get through the crowd of people and out the front door. A few minutes later, Dallas came from inside the building and shook the car keys in front of my face. He stopped when I swat his hand away from my face. He smirked and started toward Buck's car.

"Why are _you_ so snappy today?" he asked, started the car and drove off.

"Let's see… the other two youngest other than me are away at who-knows-where, waiting for you to come and see how they're doin'. Meanwhile, you've got everyone except Soda convinced that they ran off to Texas, but you won't even tell Soda where they are. And the only way _I_ even got you to tell me was cause I threatened you. That's why," I snapped at him.

He shook his head. "Well just so you know, I wasn't scared or threatened by you, I just never saw you so mad."

"I was mad cause I'm scared for Ponyboy and Johnny."

"Look, they're fine, alright? So calm down."

"How do you know they're alright? How the hell can you be so sure?"

"Cause they're scared."

I looked at him weird, knowing full well he couldn't see my face cause it was dark out. I tried to figure out what he meant by that, just like when he said the day before that he said that fear keeps you alert.

**I'm not one-hundred percent satisfied with this chapter, but like I said last author's note, you guys are the reader not me. **

**Anyway, so apparently, either tomorrow or Wednesday, a laptop is coming in the mail for me! :D I've never had my own laptop oh my gahd! I mean this one right now, I'm sharing with my mom, but it's basically the laptop that both me and my parents use, but I'm getting my own! So, question, is there a way I can save a whole folder of stuff on this laptop to a flash stick to put onto the other laptop? Is that possible? If you know, please answer :/ :)**

**Ok, hope you liked the chapter, peace from all the hippies of the world! =^-^=**


	13. Chapter 13

"_Rain, c'mon, wake up. C'mon! We haven't got all day,"_ I heard a voice say with an annoyed tone as they shook my left side in attempt to wake me up.

I opened my eyes slowly and yawned, "What?" I could hear the tiredness in my voice but chose to ignore it as best I could.

I heard an annoyed sigh from the other person who- once my eyes adjusted- I figured out to be Dallas. "We're here."

I started to sit up and stretch. "Where?"

He let out another sigh, starting to annoy me. "Windrixville."

For some reason that word woke me right up. I sat up even quicker, making him chuckle. I did my best to ignore him and looked in the right side view mirror and fixed whatever bedhead I had, thought I think it's physically impossible to get bedhead when you fall asleep in a car and the way you woke up is the seat you're in is only tilted backwards a tiny bit and your head is resting on the inside of the car door. But one thing it can give you: a huge crick in the neck, so much that you feel like every time you move your neck that you're gonna kill yourself.

Dallas started the car back up and drove off. The whole car ride to Jay Mountain had been the worst car ride of my life, not including the ride through the night on the way to where he had parked the car for us to take a break and sleep overnight.

It took about twenty minutes to get to the old abandoned church Dallas had told me, Johnny and Ponyboy about. I knew he said it was beaten down, but I didn't think it would be as beaten down as it was. All the windows were broken and had wood boards over them, probably to keep people from going inside or whatever the reason. The paint on the outside was either chipped, faded, or gone. There were cracks throughout the outside walls, showing just about how old it was and how long no one had been there. To me, it looked like the whole place would collapse into a pile of rubble any moment now.

He stopped the car a little ways away from the church, got out and motioned for me to follow after him. I got out and followed him over to the old church. He walked around, peeking through the panels over the windows and the small slits in between each of them, probably making sure Ponyboy and Johnny were actually inside. A few minutes later, he slipped in through a window with a few boards on it, but not too many so that we could get in, then helped me through the boards.

There were two figures asleep on two old benches in the building. One had short dark hair and the other had short blonde hair. We started to-

Wait…. _blonde hair?_

Dallas woke the two boys while I tried to comprehend why there were two boys with short hair and one with blonde. The two sat up. I saw Johnny's face under the head of hair that was dark and short, and Ponyboy's under the short blonde hair. Either way, I couldn't help but run over to them and hug them both, just happy that they were both ok. "I was so worried about you two! Are you guys ok?" I asked them when I pulled away from the hug.

The two shrugged a bit. "As good as we can be," Ponyboy said.

"Is… is what happened true?" My voice got quiet, I felt bad about asking but I had to know if the papers were true and if what Dallas told me was true.

Johnny nodded, "Yeah… but it was self-defense! I didn't mean to kill him! They were drownin' Ponyboy in the fountain in the park and they were beatin' me up too, they probably would've left us for dead if they could… you believe me right, Rain?"

I nodded. "Of course I believe you. I knew it had to be some sort of self-defense. No offense, but neither of ya could hurt a fly on purpose if you had to." They both chuckled at what I said, making me smile a bit.

Dallas continued to explain what was going on back home with the whole thing. He even explained on how he managed to get the police to believe that the two of them ran off to Texas, and how Two-Bit said he wanted to go to Texas to go to find them, saying that it shouldn't take that long or whatever. He then remembered about some letter and handed it to Ponyboy saying that it was from Sodapop, explaining how other than me, he was the only one who didn't believe a word of Dallas' story and how he said he knew nothing about where they were.

Dallas offered to take the two to the Dairy Queen we had seen on the way, considering they'd been there for almost a whole week and they were probably hungry. And by their reaction as soon as he said the words "Dairy Queen", they must've been starved and reminded me of probably what a nomad in the middle of the desert who'd been traveling for nearly a week and ran outta food.

"So, how're Darry and Sodapop doin'?" Ponyboy asked cautiously on the way to the Dairy Queen.

"Honest?" I asked.

He nodded. "Honest."

I sighed a bit. "They're worried sick. Don't tell anyone this happened cause I dunno if he wants anyone else to know except for me and him, but Darry basically had an emotional breakdown a few days ago, saying how this whole mess was all his fault."

Ponyboy gave a confused look. "_His _fault? Why's he think that?"

"He said it was cause he lost his temper when you got home so late cause he was so worried if something happened to you or not that he basically just lost it that night."

He sat there, probably thinking about what I had just told him about Darry. He shook his head and looked back at me, "And Sodapop?"

"He's been goin' back and forth between being able to handle it calmly, and sometimes going all the way down to depression or having his own emotional breakdown," I answered.

He stayed quiet the rest of the ride there, either thinking about what I had told him about how his brother's reactions- or hiding his fear as best as he could just like it looked like Johnny was doing. The whole time, while the three of us were fearing about how long we would be alive in the car, Dallas took his hands off the wheel for a moment or two, smiling and laughing his head off.

We got to the Dairy Queen a little while after, the three of us thankful that the car had finally stopped moving. We went to the order window and got some things to eat and parked on the far side of the lot, probably so no one would get the chance to identify Ponyboy and Johnny by their faces if they were in the newspapers here too. While the three of them talked, thankfully, no one came up to the car, looked at the two and yelled anything like _"Murderers!"_ or _"Call the cops! They're wanted!" _or anything of the sort.

Dallas told them about the whole rumble coming up, and apparently that we had a spy- who was a Soc. Ponyboy jumped up when he said the name _Cherry Valance_. I didn't know why, but I figured I would ask him about the name and why he got so excited about it on the way back to the mountain.

On the drive back, Dallas was a little better at driving, probably cause we had all just eaten- but he didn't fully calm down. Him and Johnny were talking about something, so I decided to take the chance and ask Ponyboy why he got so excited about the name _Cherry Valance._ "I met her at the drive-in that night," he shrugged.

"And…?" I asked, trying to get him to explain further.

"And…? What?"

I scoffed a little bit. "Ponyboy, she's obviously just not some other girl like I am too you… you like her, don't you?"

His cheeks started to turn slightly pink a bit, but it looked like he tried to ignore it. "I don't know… I've never liked someone before."

"Well, I'll tell you this much… if you two ever start going out, I'll help ya with her and how to handle a girl. Ok?" I said in a teasing voice. He chuckled and nodded.

We were cut short when I heard the two in the front of the car say something and I heard people yelling. Ponyboy and I looked straight ahead and saw the church they had been hiding out in was now being looked at and scaring a group of little kids about ten feet away from the building along with some adults, watching the church go up in flames.

**Look boss! De fire! De fire! **

**Excuse the fantasy island reference to "look boss! De plane! De plane!"**

**But oh my gahd the fire at the church! :,( y'all knew it was gonna happen eventually. But anyway, I didn't know whether I should use wording from the book or the movie and like I said, I'm lazy, so I just did things that Rain explained in her thoughts as if she was talking to you (the reader) what was going on. **

**This story is almost near to finished though X( it's fun to write it, don't get me wrong, but I honestly wanna get it done and over with so I can focus on the other stories I'm writing, plus I wanna finish reading the sequel to "North and South", "Love and War" cause I still need to see the second mini series based off that one so I can read the last in the trilogy "Heaven and Hell" so then I can watch that show, then read "That Was Then… This Is Now", "Tex" and "Rumble Fish" so then I can see those movies so then I can read "Gone With the Wind" so then I can watch that so then I can read "The Godfather" (my dad doesn't know about that one so no one tell him that, it's a secret that my mom got the book for me cause he's offended by the mafia stereotype even though he's not full Italian but whatever)**

**And I just gave you my whole reading schedule for the year leading into next year, but whatever**

**Anyway, hope you like this chapter! Get ready for the fire at the church next chapter! Peace from all the hippies of the world! =^-^=**


	14. Chapter 14

Ponyboy ran out of the car, ignoring any protests from the two adults with the kids, me, Johnny or Dallas. Not even a moment later, Johnny ran off to the burning building right behind him to get however many kids out of the church. I looked over and saw Dallas shake his head in annoyance. "They're idiots… they're gonna get themselves killed," he said in an annoyed tone.

Not long after, Dallas was at one of the windows helping the two kids the kids out by taking them from the two and setting them down on the grass. . What was I doing? I was helping the two teachers in charge of the little kids to calm down any kid who was crying or upset about the whole situation, while at the same time, hiding my own fear and worry. It wasn't easy, considering two of my friends were inside the building that was on fire, the other right outside of the window leaning into the building.

Dallas set another kid down on the grass, who then came running in the direction of me and the female teacher. The little girl stopped when she reached me and hugged my leg. I leaned down to her and picked her up to calm her down a bit. She tried to stretch her little arms around my shoulders but only managed to wrap them loosely around my neck. She buried her head in my shoulder and rubbed circles on her back with my hand. I couldn't help that, even with the situation, I looked over to the church and saw the fire start to spread more throughout the outside of the building. _"Where the hell is the fire department?"_ I thought, kind of annoyed at their absence.

After a few minutes the girl calmed down and I put her down. All the kids who were in the church were out by now, but my two friends who were still in the building were struggling to get out I bit down hard on my bottom lip while I waited for the three of them to get away from the building, my heart beating as fast a rabbit's and getting faster with worry every second that passed.

My eyes widened and I jumped when a huge fire started up inside and I heard a huge crash from inside the building and heard a yell. I saw Dallas put Ponyboy down on the grass and went back into the church through the broken window he had been leaning into before. I knew I had lost it at that point cause I heard a scream, knowing full well that it was mine, and started to run toward the church and struggled when I felt someone's hand s wrap around my arms to hold me back from getting any closer to the building.

I felt the tears that formed in my eyes from worry start to run down my cheeks. I was still struggling for the person to let go of me, but it was no use- and I knew that, but for some reason I still felt like trying, thinking maybe I could get out of the person's grasp. I could hear myself screaming things like, _"Let me go!"_, _"Those are my friends!"_, _"I have to see what's wrong!"_ and _"Someone help them! They're all just kids!" _But even with all my yelling and screaming, I didn't see anyone do anything till the cops, firefighters, and EMT's got there.

When the fire was finally out, the person who'd been holding me back the entire time finally let me go. I turned angrily and saw the female teacher. "Why didn't you let me go?! I could've helped get my friends get out of there and now they're hurt!" I yelled at her, tears still running down my cheeks.

She shook her head, "This whole thing was too dangerous and one less person getting injured helps both you and them."

I gave her a look of both shock and annoyance. "_Oh really_? So, does me not being hurt make it like this whole thing never happened? Me not being hurt, does that make my friends better and outta those ambulances and like they never got hurt? _No!_ It doesn't!"

"I know you don't understand what I'm saying, but one day you will."

I shook my head, glared at the female teacher, then turned and walked toward the ambulances.

The male teacher was getting into the ambulance that I saw Ponyboy was in. Before letting the EMT close the door, he looked at me, "You're friends with these boys, right?" I nodded. "He held out one hand toward me, holding onto the ambulance with the other hand, "C'mon, I'll help you in." I gave him an unsure look at the man, unsure what to do. He must've noticed cause he then gave a small smile and nodded. I took his hand and he helped me inside, and the ambulance was off.

"I heard that little argument before," he said, handing me a tissue to wipe my cheeks. I accepted the tissue and let him continue. "She's right, you know."

I snapped my head in the man's direction and gave an annoyed look, "How's _she_ right?"

"These three boys are your friends, you said it yourself. When they're all healed up and out and about again, they'll be even more thankful that you didn't get hurt like they did."

"How do you know?"

"Cause you're a girl. And judging by the whole situation, you must be one of those girls who's friends with a whole group of guys instead of a group of other girls. Am I right?" I nodded. "Then to some extent, you're one of the things they care about most in this whole world, and more so, your well being. Trust me, I know what I'm talking about."

I scoffed a bit, "Maybe… but I doubt it. Three of 'em have girlfriends, and one of 'em really loves her a lot."

"How many guy friends, including these three, do you have?"

"Seven."

"And how long have you known them all?"

"About nine or ten years, eleven at most."

"So you've know them since, before any of you ever started dating?" I nodded. "That means you have a special place in all their hearts that no girl could ever take. They all probably love you like a sister, go to you for advice on girls instead of another one of your guy friends, those sorts of things. And they have a different love for you, one that can never be replaced by another girl cause you've been there their whole lives."

I let out a small sigh, look over at Ponyboy- who was still unconscious- the looked down at my feet. I cleared my throat, "Um… thanks, for the tissue." My voice was quiet. I saw the man from the corner of my eye.

I felt bad about cutting the man off, especially since I knew he was trying to be helpful and make me feel better, but I really didn't feel like talking at the moment. I just wanted to think. I knew both the man and the female teacher were right, it had taken me a while to calm down and realize it, but I didn't think I was mentally ready to accept and didn't think I would be till this whole mess was taken care of. Once they were found innocent on self-defense, once they were back home and we were all sitting around in the Curtis' living room, I wouldn't be ready to accept.

By the time we got back into town, we were still in the ambulance one the way to the hospital. Ponyboy was awake by now. I didn't notice or realize how dirty and how much soot and smoke and dirt had gotten onto him till he started to move once he woke up, and I had to let out a chuckle. "What's so funny?" he mumbled tiredly.

I chuckled again, "I didn't really how dirty you got till just now."

I saw his eyes scan over his body to look over and see for himself without moving his head and he lifted his arms in the air a little, then he chuckled. "I guess I am."

"On the plus side, it makes your hair look almost it's natural color again." My voice was so obvious that I was teasing him, and he chuckled. I chuckled again. "So howya feelin'?"

He shrugged, or at least tried to the best he could in his position. "As good as I can be…"

"That's your answer a lot lately."

He chuckled again. "I guess so… hey, uh, did you see how Johnny and Dallas were?" His voice was already quiet, but now it was so quiet it was hard to hear him.

"I, uh… I didn't get to see them before they were in the other ambulances." Now my voice was quiet.

The man, who said his name was Jerry, then started to talk to Ponyboy. I had been listening to their conversation for about a minute until my mind drifted off somewhere else in the world. Everything that had happened this past week, and everything at the fire on the mountain flooded into my head. It all felt so unreal, like I would wake up and this whole thing would be a dream. Like I'd wake up, it would be the day Ponyboy, Johnny and Dallas had gone to the movies and nothing went wrong, like I'd be at the Shepard's house and never get the call from Darry, like Darry would've never had that conversation with me and the newspaper never came about how they killed that Soc, like the interrogations at the station never happened, and most of all- like this whole stupid fire never happened.

"... professional heroes or something?" was the words that took me from my thoughts.

"We're Greasers…" I heard Ponyboy say quietly and weakly.

Jerry gave a shocked look and looked back and forth between me and Ponyboy, then stopped on Ponyboy again. "Are… are you kidding me?"

"No I ain't kiddin' ya… take me to town and you'll found out pretty fast."

Jerry looked at me, silently asking if he was lying and that if I wasn't, if I was a Greaser too and I nodded. He didn't say much of anything else the rest of the drive there, probably trying to figure out how Greasers- like the hoods most people thought of us as- could've pulled such a stunt like we did on that mountain.

**This chapter was longer than most, but that's expected… kinda dramatic though how I incorporated Rain, don't ya think?**

**Anyway, this chapter was kinda hard believe it or not… I don't know why, it just was. And there's more where that came from folks!**

**I has a birthday party today :3 I picking up my best friend after the school day is over cause we go to different schools now (I'm online, she's at my old nasty private school)-**

**OH MY GAHD THAT REMINDS ME! I remember I wanted to say: I've said before that I used to go to private school, whether in this story's notes, or another's notes but either way- people have thought that I was some private school jerk. Like some spoiled brat, but I'm not. You know how there's always that one kid in a private school who is basically the poor one who's struggling to pay to go there- that was me, and I was surrounded by a bunch of spoiled brats with what I call "Rich People Problems". Like once, my friend complained that she couldn't go to Europe for vacation, but was going to Florida instead and I was there like- screw you, I've never been on vacation… so basically, in outsiders terms- I was a Greaser, stuck in a place full of Socs…. Plus my mom thinks basically like a Soc probably would, so I'm stuck here.**

**Wow, that was random and you probably don't care but whatever, these notes are usually looks into my crazy life.**

**Whatever- hope you like the chapter! Peace from all the hippies of the world! =^-^=**


	15. Chapter 15

I sat in the hospital waiting room with Ponyboy and Jerry. The two both took out a cigarette of their own. _"Haven't we had enough smoke for one day?"_ I thought.

Another reason I thought that was cause I didn't like smoking. Even though I was basically surrounded by people who smoked, not to mention about three-fourth's of the people on the East Side of town smoked. Whether you're a girl or a boy, if you're from the East Sid and you _didn't _smoke, people would sometimes look at you funny. I always ignored the looks but thankfully the gang knew I didn't like to smoke myself, they wouldn't tease me about it like some people in town did. And when those people would, they would stand up for me and say things like, _"Maybe she don't like, so what? What's that gotta do with you?"_

The doctors and nurses said Ponyboy was fine, he just had a few minor burns, nothing major. Even though I wasn't near the fire or the building, the doctors still felt the need to check me out and make sure I was fine. They kept saying that I had gotten pretty close to the fire and smoke, considering how big the fire was, and that's why they wanted to make sure I was ok.

The two were still talking but stopped when someone walked in. Both Ponyboy and me looked up to see who it was and saw Sodapop walking toward us. Ponyboy jumped up, ran to him and hugged him tight. When they let go, Soda ran his hand through his younger brother's now blonde and short hair, probably teasing him about it.

Then I saw Darry come in through the doors at the end of the hall. He watched his two younger brothers, looking both nervous and happy to have Ponyboy back home. If I heard right, he had said Ponyboy's name. Ponyboy then yelled his name then ran over to him, even faster than he had ran to Soda.

"Where's your family?" Jerry asked, taking me outta my thoughts.

"What?" I asked.

"Your family… are they coming to pick you up?"

"Oh, uh… yeah. Yeah, I think so."

"We can drive her home," I heard Darry say.

Jerry looked at them then me, "You're friends with them, right?" I nodded. He stood up from his seat, "I guess I'll be going then." He waved then walked down the hall out the doors.

"So that's where you and Dallas disappeared to," Soda teased, "Darry was 'bout ready to file a missing person's report for the two of ya."

Considering the brother's said they would drive me home, I stayed at the hospital with them pretty late. I agreed, but I refused to stay over their house for the night considering Ponyboy had just gotten back. I figured the three needed at least _one_ night where none of us were staying over. They had tried to convince me that they didn't mind, but I just kept telling them that they needed that one night.

To sleep overnight, we called Two-Bit asking if I could stay over his house for a day or a few days. Thankfully, he didn't get drunk that night so we called him while sober. He said his mom and kid sister were outta town for a week or two, but even if they were in town currently, they wouldn't mind if I stayed over.

The five of us all agreed that it'd be a pretty dumb idea for me to stay at my own house considering how much excitement we had, just during the day. Then the fact that I said no to the Curtis' brothers. Soda suggested calling Steve, but then he remembered that me and Steve didn't get along _too_ well and we'd probably kill each other at some point during the night, plus his dad wasn't the greatest and we all knew it. If I wanted to deal with Steve's dad, I just would've slept at my own house.

I nearly fell asleep a few times while I was still with the three brothers. For a while, Soda had started to play around and act like he was a reporter. He went around to the doctors and the nurses around the floor we were on, asking them questions ad a whole bunch of other stuff. At one point he even started to interview me, and somehow I managed to answer his questions through my laughter.

I guess I did eventually fall asleep while the four of us were there, cause I really only remember up to a little after Soda was interviewing people. "C'mon Rain, we gotta go," Darry said quietly. I nodded and got up from my seat, following the three out the doors and to his truck.

They drove to my house first for me to get a few things from my room. I snuck in through the window and locked the door. I grabbed a small bag and put a few pairs of clothes in there, grabbed my own personal switchblade, then a few photos I thought of best: the most recent of me and the gang, and one of us all when we were all just kids- before society took its toll on how we were treated just cause of what side of town we lived on.

After that they dropped me off at Two-Bit's house. When we got there, Two-Bit was sitting on his front steps playing around with his show switchblade. He looked up at us when Darry drove up. He put the blade back in his pocket, stood up and walked to ward the truck. He took my small bag from me and headed toward the house while I got out the truck and waved goodbye and goodnight to the three brothers as they drove off.

"So you were at the fire?" Two-Bit asked as we walked inside.

I nodded and followed him in, "Yeah… I think it was the worst experience of my life."

"Wanna talk?" He sat down on the ocuch.

I sat down next to him and let out a sigh. "I don't think I'm ready to yet…"

"Alright… I won't force ya to. But when you do, I'll be right here."

"Thanks. I just wanna think 'bout it as little as possible as long as I can."

"I can respect that… ya look exhausted though. C'mon," he stood up, "I'll show you where you can sleep."

I followed him to a room that looked like it probably belonged to his younger sister. "She won't mind me sleepin' here?" I asked.

He shook his head. "She won't care… unless you mess up one of her posters," he chuckled.

I gave a small smile and looked around the room. "Elvis," I smiled, "Girl's got good taste."

"I guess… anyway, if ya need anything, I'm in the next room over, alright?"

I nodded. "Yeah, thanks."

"No problem… good night, Rain."

"Good night, Two-Bit." After that, he left the room.

**Kinda smaller I know, but I never update on weekends so be happy**

**Plus I typed this on my new laptop so yay!**

**Ok, peace from all the hippies of the world! =^-^=**


	16. Chapter 16

" 'Round that way," Two-Bit whispered to me and Steve. We both nodded and went through the other room to get to the kitchen.

I could hear him yell Ponyboy's name, Ponyboy yelled and Steve laughed, and I couldn't help but let out my own laughter at the scene and what was going on in front of me. The two were basically- what I call- "guy hugging", which is the weird and different way that guys hug so they don't seem like sissy's or whatever but still hug another guy who's a friend. Steve was included in that, which really shocked me considering how him and Ponyboy got along. The pan in Ponyboy's hand had a faint white film and I gave a curious look, which quickly left my face when I saw the egg splatted all over and against the wall clock- which set me into another fit of laughter.

"…where's Soda and Superman?" I heard Steve ask when I got back to Earth from the little place called my imagination.

Before anyone could answer, Steve was lifted off the ground and placed down in a different spot a few feet away. "That answers that," I mumbled to Ponyboy who chuckled at my comment.

Soda was running around the house looking for his jeans and his DX shirt. Steve and Two-Bit now were comfortably seated in the living room, each with a piece of chocolate cake and watching the Mickey Mouse cartoon that was currently playing on the television. "Is the one on either _Mickey's Birthday Party_ or _Orphan's Benefit_?"

"It kinda looks like _Mickey's Garden_... but I can never tell which of these is which," Steve shrugged.

Two-Bit turned and looked at us two with shocked expressions, "I don't even know y'all anymore."

I couldn't help but scoff. "Excuse us if we don't pay attention to this as much as you do." My voice was full of tease and he stuck his tongue out at me, but then failed at holding in a laugh.

Darry, Steve and Sodapop all left for work and it was then me, Two-Bit and Ponyboy in the house. I would've been at school, but I knew people would be asking me about the whole thing in the papers and everything else cause people knew that I was friends with Ponyboy and I really wasn't in the mood for any questions about the whole thing. So instead, I was helping the two clean the dishes or whatever else needed to be cleaned around the house. Ponyboy and Two-Bit were talking about something, I'm not quite sure what about though. I couldn't really pay attention or concentrate on anything so far fo rhte morning, I'm not sure why though.

After the three of us finished the dishes and cleaning up we all went out. It wasn't unusual to see kids from the East Side out in the town during the day when most kids were in school, so no one questioned us. The two decided to go to a place like Dairy Queen, but I forgot what the place was actually called. After that, they decided to go see how Johnny and Dallas were doing.

To be honest, I wasn't too keen on going. It's not cause I didn't care about them, far from that. I was just scared of what I would see. Was I worried about the two of them? Of course I was, no question about it. But if either of them were seriously hurt, I knew I wouldn't be able to handle seeing them in that condition. I know it may seem kinda concieted to most people, but in a way I was helping them by not letting them see me so worried.

We got to the place like Dairy Queen and the two started to walk a little faster toward the door. I glanced over my shoulder and saw a blue mustang driving not far behind us. I tried my best to keep up with Ponyboy and Two-Bit. The cars stopped and a few guys got out the car, obviously Socs. They started to walk toward us. I looked down a bit and hoped that out of all the times my mind had drifted off so far today, that right now would be one of those moments.

Thankfully, like I hoped it would, my mind did start to drift off to it's own little world. I don't remember what I was thinking about, but my head was all over the place. I looked back up when one of them walked back over to the car with Ponyboy. I looked over to my left and saw Two-Bit with the other guys who were at the mustang. He was laughing hysterically and pointing at the bottom of their pants legs but the Socs weren't laughing, meaning he was teasing them about something that he would only be able to do now- considering we could kinda do whatever we wanted to them and not get beat up cause of the rumble.

After that, we headed over to the hospital. When we got there, the two headed to where Johnny was first. I could feel my heart start to beat a little faster with nervousness with every footstep I took toward the room. I started to get even more worried when at first, the nurse wouldn't let us into the room until the doctor let us go in.

When we were finally allowed to go into the room, I glanced through the door and fear took over. I don't know why, but it just did. I could feel my body tense up, the color drained from my face, my teeth clenched a little, and my heart began to beat even faster than before. "You ok, Rain?" Ponyboy asked, gaining my attention.

I shook my head a little bit and fixed my gaze on the ground, "I can't go in there." My voice was quiet.

"What's wrong?"

"I just… I just can't see him as hurt as he is. Would you be mad if I stayed out here?"

He shook his head. "Don't worry, I get it."

"Thanks…"

The two walked in. I let out a heavy sigh and leaned agaist the doorway, crossing my arms over my chest and looking down at the tile floor. I could hear them talking, but one voice was quieter than the other two and I unfortunately could tell who it was. That right there proved to me how bad he must've been. I immediately felt bad about not going in, even just to say hi to Johnny and just to see him, but like I said, I knew I wouldn't be able to handle it and that wouldn't help anyone in any way, shape or form possible.

A miunte or two later, Two-Bit came out into the hall. "Where ya goin'?" I asked him, getting up off the wall.

"See if there's a copy of _Gone With the Wind_ down at the drug store," he answered, "Wanna come along?"{

I quickly nodded and we walked ot the elevator. "So how's he doin'?"

He stared at the elevator buttons for a seconde before pressing one of the buttons and answering me. "I'll be honest… he ain't doin' so hot."

My eyes widened and the color drained from my face once again. I didn't say anything and neither did Two-Bit. From what I could tell, neither of us could reall think of anything to say. I felt bad for putting him on the spot to answer the question and putting him in that position, but I couldn't figure out how to apologize for asking him.

We got back to the room and I waited outside again. Not even a minute later, they both came out from the room- this time looking even worse than when they went to walk in. I decided to keep my mouth shut this time so I wouldn't even risk asking anything that would make the two worse.

There was a lady yelling and arguing with a nurse. I recognized her as Mrs. Cade. They wouldn't let her into the room to see Johnny, and most likely with good reason. I stood behind Ponyboy to avoid her when Two-Bit walked up to her. "No wonder he hates your guts!" he yelled at her, "Go to hell!" He turned back to Ponyboy and me and walked to Dallas' room, obviously trying to hold back any tears that had formed in his eyes.

When we got to his room, I did the same by waiting outside the room. A nurse came out from the room with an annoyed expression. "Do you know the boy in there?" she asked. I nodded. "My condolences," she said with an annoyed tone and walked off in the other direction in attempt to get as far away from the room as possible, then turned the corner of the hall.

A few minutes later, Ponyboy and Two-Bit came out the room and back to the hallway. They didn't loo as shaken up as when they left Johnny's room, but for all I knew, they could just have been expecting the worst. Just like when they left Johnny's room, I kept my mouth shut just to make sure I didn't cause anything else to happen.

After the hospital we went to the bus stop. The two probably wanted to get back to the house as soon as possible to get ready for the rumble. I knew they were talking about something but like the rest of the morning, I couldn't pay attention to what. "Somethin' terrible's gonna happen tonight," was all I managed to get out of their conversation.

Whoever said that, I agreed with them one-hundred percent.

**This is the second to last chapter! The last chapter (next one) will lead into the beginning of "To Love A Greaser" where I started that one back in October. I know I wrote that one first, but I decided that this one will be the official first of this little trilogy fan fiction of mine. So the order will be:**

**Before the Love**

**To Love a Greaser**

**The Power of Love**

**Like I said, I know I wrote this one and the second one in the opposite order, and there are probably people here who have already read "TO Love a Greaser" but for those who haven't, this leads into it.**

**I'm actually kind happy that this one is done, that's one less notebook to carry around with me in my bag, and one less thing to worry about finishing. Cause I literally have only 40 pages left of "Love and War" to read, but then there's "Heaven and Hell" (which is the last of the "North and South" trilogy) but then I can watch the show of it! Plus Wayward Pines started last week, so then I wanna read those books, plus I still have to read "Rumble Fish", "That Was Then… This Is Now" and "Tex", plus my mom got me "The Godfather" book, then "Gone With the Wind" then the Kent Family Chronicles by John Jakes so I have a lot… not to mention school work and my own books that I'm writing**

**Anyway, second to last chapter! If you already read "To love a Greaser", there's always "The Power of Love"! :) peace from all the hippies of the world! =^-^=**


	17. Chapter 17

The five were all getting ready for the rumble. Steve and Soda were playing one of their many card games, Two-Bit was in the living room, Darry was in the next room, Ponyboy was in the bathroom fixing his hair. I was sitting on the couch, leaning my arm on the couch arm and my leg bouncing up and down out of nervousness. While I was sitting there, I couldn't help but think the worst of what could happen at the rumble.

"Remember, don't go out this house at least till we all get back," Darry said, coming in from the other room taking me from my thoughts, "Pony'll be here too with ya so you won't be alone."

Ponyboy started to protest and somehow managed to convince Darry about letting him go. The three brothers then started to tease each other back and forth, then running out the house laughing and shouting a minute later, the best friend and the jokester following behind the three. They were all laughing and shouting and doing flips and everything as they ran out the house and down the street. I couldn't help but laugh at their antics as I watched them from the doorway as they flipped and jumped around- even Darry. My own smile was still in place even when they were out of sight.

I turned back to go inside the house like Darry wanted me to, but stopped as I opened the door while at the same time heard someone call, "_Rain!"_ I turned and saw Dallas getting out of a car. "C'mon, we gotta go," he said, grabbing my arm and dragging me into the car. I got into the back seat and he drove off.

"Where're we goin'?'" I asked over the sound of thunder.

"To the rumble," he answered.

"But I thought you were in the hospital?"

"I was."

"Then how'd ya get out?"

"I _always_ get what I want." I could see a smirk playing on his lips along with his answer.

_That's both a good thing and a bad thing,_ I thought. "Did you get to see how Johnny was doin' when you left?"

His smirk quickly left his face and now he had a blank expression. "You ask too many questions, ya know that?" He didn't turn to me, just kept his eyes on the road. And even though he didn't technically answer me, he did in his own way.

He drove to the sidewalk across the street from where the rumble was gonna take place. "Stay down and don't get outta this car unless I tell you to, am I clear?" he asked even though we both knew I had no choice. I nodded and he got out the car and ran over to the large crowd of dark figures that were only slightly illuminated by a small fire about ten feet away from the large crowd.

I did as I was told- which was a rare thing- and stayed inside the car. I crouched down on the floor of the back seat and poked my head up to see what was going on through the window, but not a lot so that no one would see me. It was kinda hard though, trying to see through the slight fog that had been created by the slight rain that had started, but I could make out where my friends were, who was getting kicking around, who was kicking someone around, and anything else in between. Some of the things though, I wish I didn't see happen to the people I knew in the crowd.

A little while later, I could see Socs running away from the site and to their cars. I ducked down by leaning my back against the inside of the car door and laying down on the floor of the car slightly where it was so dark, I could barely see my hand right in front of my face. I nearly jumped outta my skin when I heard the two front doors open suddenly and close and two figures now sat in the driver's seat and the passenger's seat. I calmed down when I heard someone with Dallas' voice call out through the car, "Rain, you in here?"

I got up off the floor with a small grunt and leaned on the back of the passenger's seat. "Right here," I answered then looked at the beaten up figure in the seat, "Oh my gosh, Ponyboy, are you ok?"

He shut his eyes and leaned into the seat and nodded slightly as Dallas started the car and drove off a million miles an hour. I could see blue and red lights flashing behind us and heard a police siren from behind us. "Act sick," Dallas whispered to Ponyboy, who nodded and slumped down in his seat a little more.

"Ok, where's the fire?" the cop asked as he leaned against Dallas' window.

Dallas acknowledged Ponyboy in the seat next to him, "This kid fell of his motorcycle and I'm takin' him to the hospital," he lied.

The cop looked at me. "And you, little missy?"

"I'm his sister," I lied, though we all knew I might as well be.

The cop nodded and looked back at Dallas. "How bad is he?"

Dallas shrugged. "I dunno! I mean, do I look like a doctor to you? But he looks pretty bad, don't he, Rain?" I nodded.

"How 'bout an escort? It'll get ya there quicker."

"Sure." The cop nodded and walked off. I heard Dallas snicker, "_Sucker_." The cop drove past us with his sirens and lights going off and Dallas driving close behind him as fast as he could.

Dallas had started to lecture the two of us about something. I would've paid attention, but my mind was stuck where it had been the rest of the day. I knew we were going to the hospital at some point tonight, even when he picked me up at the house, and I knew it wasn't all for Ponyboy. There was only one reason Dallas Winston would be voluntarily driving to a hospital, especially since he always referred to them as "_hell hole"_.

"…get tough like me and you don't get hurt. You get tough like me, and nothing can touch you," Dallas said and slammed his fist against the steering wheel. He let out a tiny sob but quickly swallowed it, trying not to let it show to me and Ponyboy. The rest of the ride there, no one said a word and made a sound.

We got to the hospital and rushed to get to the front entrance. "Rain, help me here with Ponyboy," he commanded. I nodded and did as he said. Ponyboy was somewhat awake. He knew what was going on, where we were, and he could kinda stand up on his own but needed a little help walking- but if you looked at him, it was obvious he need at least _a little_ help walking at the moment.

"You two ok?" I asked as we walked down the hall. I looked at the two I'd known all my life, yet I felt I was looking at two strangers. They both nodded, Ponyboy a little slower. Even though I felt like I was looking at strangers when I looked at them for the moment, I could still tell they were lying. They were obviously just trying to focus on the situation at hand instead of the cuts and bruises that covered their bodies. They were so used to trying to hide their emotions, I don't think they knew how to answer something like this genuinely, even though it was just me.

We got to Johnny's room. I decided this time I would suck it up and go in, but kinda regretted it the minute I walked in. I knew this would be the last time I would ever see him, even though I didn't want it to be, but I had to face the reality and the real world.

I had to accept that everything and everyone around me was changing, whether whatever changed was a good or bad thing.

…_To Be Continued… To Love A Greaser…_

**This is officially the end of "Before the Love". Hope you enjoyed it, whether you read this before or after "To Love A Greaser"… if you didn't read it yet, ignore most of the author's notes I put, especially about planning to do this story cause the official order for my little trilogy is now:**

**Before the Love**

**To Love a Greaser**

**The Power of Love**

**Enjoy! Thank you for reading this one! Peace from all the hippies of the world! =^-^=**


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